


Gifted: Do No Harm

by Dreamshaper



Series: Gifted [3]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, also malevolent ghosts, and all the usual stuff :D, and fluff, because I really enjoy this little verse hehe, more X-Men meets GB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-12-29 20:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 27,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamshaper/pseuds/Dreamshaper
Summary: The Ghostbusters go undercover to a hospital haunted by more than one spirit, and not all of them benevolent. With their work there not quite official though, ghosts are not the only threat they have to worry about.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So! :D This is the third installment of the Gifted series, because I just can't resist the Holtzerine XD I hope you'll enjoy :D

“I find it highly unfair that we all feel as if we haven’t slept in weeks and you’re still as spry and energetic as a spring lamb”, Abby groaned as she let herself fall onto the couch, grimacing at the ache in her back and feet; Holtzmann shrugged and smirked at her, unperturbed by the glare which was levelled her way as she sat down in the nearest comfortable armchair.

“Baaah”, she let out in her best imitation of said spring lamb, earning a snort of laughter from Erin as the physicist moved to sit in her lap; Patty snickered, as well, while Abby just rolled her eyes, but then smiled after all, shaking her head at the blonde’s antics.

“So”, she then said while Erin shifted a bit, in an attempt to get comfortable on her girlfriend’s lap, “we’re all gonna sing _Erin had a little lamb_ then?”

“Ha!” Patty let out while now, it was Holtzmann’s turn to roll her eyes and Erin just smirked, “good one Abby. For real though, Holtzy, I’m jealous, here you are all fresh and not tired while I feel like one walking bruise. Seven busts in four days is definitely too much.”

“Hey, not my fault”, Holtzmann protested, “it’s not like I can control it. But I’ll make up for it and offer to get dinner while you poor ladies stay here?”

“I’ll come with you”, Erin gave back at once, not really surprising her – it had been almost six months since the mayor had reassured them that the military had no more interest in Holtzmann, but still the team worried that this might change again, and none of them was willing to let her go anywhere alone if it could be avoided.

Knowing that arguing would lead nowhere, Holtzmann just smiled and nodded, prompting Erin to rise from her seat on the younger woman’s lap; once it had been settled what they would actually eat, the couple left the firehouse together, Erin holding back a yawn as they walked to the nearest deli, side by side and holding hands.

“You know I would have been fine alone, right”, Holtzmann said as she observed the physicist’s obvious tiredness, “it’s not even ten minutes from the firehouse, and they’ve left me alone since the mayor said they would.”

“Yes, they did”, Erin nodded, “but I just don’t like the thought of having you wander around on your own, even if they didn’t try anything anymore. I’d be nervous every minute you’re gone.”

“And we don’t want nervous Erin”, Holtzmann solemnly replied, making the taller woman smile and nod; the couple shared a brief kiss, then continued on their way to the deli, both of them taking note of the way people were looking at them and excitedly pointing them out to others, but not really caring much, not anymore.

Ever since the bust at Times Square and the defeat of Rowan which had followed it, people not only believed in them, but admired them and their work; this attention had been strange to get used at first, and didn’t make keeping the fact that all four of them were mutants a secret not exactly easy, but at least, Erin thought to herself as another young woman smiled brightly and waved at them from across the street, none of them had mutations which were impossible to hide, knowing of mutants who weren’t quite as lucky.

The one who had to be careful the most was Holtzmann, with her claws and her accelerated healing; Abby had to make sure that no one would see her teleport, and Patty had had a lifetime of practice when it came to avoiding physical contact from skin to skin – and Erin herself had it easiest, something she was well aware of, her mind reading nothing which could be noticed by anyone unless she’d let them notice and her telekinetic powers not something she used all too often, even though she kept getting reminded of the fact that she should practice more.

Smiling, Erin waved back, Holtzmann doing the same, the woman squealing in excitement; this made Erin smile while the engineer snickered to herself, then squeezed her hand, giving her a smile as she spoke up again.

“We came a long way in the past year, didn’t we”, she stated, making Erin smile as well and nod, “when we started this, we were painted as frauds, and now here we are, people waving at us and getting all excited when we wave back.”

“Definitely feels good”, Erin freely admitted, making the blonde smile again; then, they reached the deli and stepped inside, the man behind the counter knowing them as regular customers at this point and greeting them happily.

While Holtzmann gave him their order, Erin made her way to the row of fridges, choosing drinks to along with the sandwiches and some snacks for later; she grabbed two cans of Pringles for her girlfriend, the chocolate Patty liked and Abby’s favourite sour candy, humming under her breath as she returned to her girlfriend’s side, her arms now full with bottled drinks and snacks.

“You need me to take some of that, sweetheart?” Holtzmann wanted to know, making the physicist shake her head; it didn’t take long until the sandwiches had been prepared, and once they had paid and had packed everything up, they walked back to the firehouse, and already from afar, they saw the young woman standing in front of it, nervously glancing left and right and wringing her hands, as if she was unsure if she should knock or ring the bell or maybe just walk in.

“Um, hi, hello?” Erin called out to her, causing her to flinch visibly before she turned to look at them, looking startled for a moment, then almost absurdly relieved as she clearly recognized them as two of the Ghostbusters.

“Hi, hi”, she said, looking around nervously again, making Erin wonder if she thought that someone was watching or following her, “you’re the Ghostbusters right? Um, I need to speak to you, in private…”

“Half of the Ghostbusters”, Erin told her, giving her best to sound soothing and calming while Holtzmann just looked on, all too aware that her eccentric personality could sometimes make people who were already upset feel even worse, “and yes, of course, please, come inside with us, we can talk in private there.”

The woman looked around once more, then nodded and followed them inside; Abby and Patty looked at her curiously while Kevin remained focused on what he was doing at his computer – probably playing Solitaire, since they had taken his e-mail access away months ago, after he had mailed back and forth for days with an alleged Nigerian prince –, and even though the other two Ghostbusters were pretty much staring at her, the woman relaxed visibly the moment the door had closed behind her.

“I’m sorry for just showing up here like that, unannounced”, she said, prompting Erin to give her a kind smile, the physicist knowing all about feeling anxious about such situations, “but I couldn’t risk calling to make an appointment, the whole situation is… somewhat delicate.”

“Have a seat”, Abby gave back, intrigued, wondering what the lady might tell them; they all sat down at the desk they used for talks with their clients, and the woman cleared her throat, shaking her head when she was offered something to drink, taking in a deep breath before she continued speaking.

“My name is Rachel Benson, I’m an intern at Gottreich Memorial Hospital”, she let them know, “I haven’t been there for long but… I’m sure it’s haunted. By more than one spirit, and the administration won’t let us do anything about it.”

“More than one ghost”, Patty echoed, frowning, “at that hospital? Not to say I don’t believe you, Miss Benson – or is it Doctor Benson? – but I know a lot about New York and its history, and I can’t remember anything of note ever happening at that hospital."

“Could be disgruntled former patients”, Erin pointed out, while Rachel didn’t look offended the slightest, to the relief of the four women, “not every haunting is connected to a great tragic event.”

“And if they’re hushing it up now, who says they haven’t done that before”, Holtzmann added, making Erin nod, “have you seen these ghosts?”

“I’ve seen one”, the young woman told them, “I don’t think it was a malevolent one, at least it… she… didn’t try to hurt me. It looked like a little girl, and just stared at me, but it creeped me out. My colleague saw another one, she said it looked like an older guy, and one of the head nurses got attacked by one, it tried to throw her down the stairs. We spoke to administration afterwards, but they wouldn’t hear of it, and wouldn’t let us call you. If they find out I’m here, they might kick me out, but not doing anything… I just couldn’t do that, what if a patient gets hurt? Or a doctor, a nurse?”

“You did the right thing, coming here”, Patty reassured her, making her smile weakly, “and no worries, we won’t let anyone at that hospital know how we got on that case.”

“Thank you”, Rachel sighed, looking so relieved that Erin wondered what she had thought, if perhaps, she had feared the Ghostbusters would storm the hospital and demand to get to work no matter if they were wanted there or not, “I really appreciate that, I love my work there, it’s just… if these ghosts end up hurting someone…”

“We’ll figure something out”, Abby told her, making her smile weakly again, “and we’ll find a way to at least take a look around without them realizing that we know what’s going on there.”

Erin nodded thoughtfully, already having a vague idea; not wanting to discuss it in front of their newest client though, she kept it to herself for the moment, just taking notes as Rachel gave a better description of the ghost she had seen, frowning a bit to herself as she wondered why the administration wouldn’t allow anyone to call them for help.


	2. Chapter 2

“No”, Holtzmann said the moment Erin had finished speaking and had explained her plan to get into the hospital, “absolutely not.”

“I hate to say this”, Erin gave back with a sigh, “but you know we don’t have much of a choice. One of us has to get in there without the people who don’t want us there realizing that we’re there to find out about the ghosts. So it has to be believable.”

“And Erin is our best candidate”, Abby added, earning an angry look from the engineer, “she might be able to find something out with her powers, and you know that.”

“Yes, I know”, Holtzmann gave back, the way she started rubbing the skin between her knuckles showing how upset she was about the whole idea, “but that doesn’t mean I have to agree. There has to be some other way.”

Feeling bad, Erin reached out to touch her arm; the younger woman gave her an unhappy look, but, to her relief, didn’t try to pull back, even though she still was rubbing between her knuckles, despite knowing very well that her usual first reaction to any threat wouldn’t help any in this special case.

“You have no fight or flight response”, Abby had told her one time, not too long ago, after she had been especially reckless during a bust, and had gone face to face with a Class V after said ghost had made the mistake of throwing Erin across the room, “you just have a fight response. You’re lucky that you heal so fast, or would have died before your twenties.”

Against this, Holtzmann knew though, her claws and fast healing would be useless; all she could do was sit there and grumble, Erin giving her a dismayed look as she rubbed her arm, trying to help her calm down.

“I know it’s not the best idea”, she had to admit, earning another unhappy look from her girlfriend, “but unless we can come up with some other way, it’s the only one.”

“…I know”, Holtzmann mumbled, sighing; Erin gave her arm a brief, tender squeeze, then shot Abby and Patty a pointed look, the two women getting the hint and coming to their feet, moving away from the lounge area to give the couple some privacy.

“It’s going to be fine”, Erin told her, eager to make her feel better about the whole situation, “you won’t let anything happen to me, right?”

“Well, I’ll kinda have to”, Holtzmann pointed out with another sigh, “but yeah, once we’re there, I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

Erin smiled at her in response, then leaned in for a brief, but gentle kiss; Holtzmann was still somewhat tense when the physicist pulled back, but at least, Erin figured, she had relaxed a bit, and didn’t look as if she’d start vibrating from sheer tension any moment now anymore.

“It’s going to be okay”, she said again, giving the younger woman another hopefully calming smile, “you’ll see, it’s going to work out just fine.”

Holtzmann wasn’t quite so sure, and not quite convinced, but as long as none of them had a different idea, she knew that there wasn’t much of a choice, and so, she grumpily agreed, then pulled Erin close for another kiss, trying to ignore her worries for now as she knew that all she could do was go with it and hope for the best.

* * *

In the next day, the Ghostbusters were as ready as they could be to set their plan in motion; it wasn’t hard to fake a bust close to Gottreich Memorial, the group finding an abandoned building not too far from the hospital and making a show of arriving there, firing their proton guns once they were out of sight to give anyone who happened to walk past outside the impression that they were about to trap or destroy another ghost.

“Alright”, Patty said once the ruse had been going on long enough, “that should do. Erin, ready?”

“Well, not really”, Erin gave back, holstering her proton gun, “but I guess we have to do it anyway, huh?”

Holtzmann looked on in dismay how Erin rolled up her sleeve and exposed her forearm; she still didn’t like the plan, but none of them had been able to come up with something better, and they all knew that it had to look realistic, if they didn’t want anyone to figure out why they really were there.

_Well, if they’re smart, they might still figure out,_ the engineer thought, something she had pointed out the previous day already; the other three had agreed that this was a good point, but still hadn’t been able to come up with any other solution, and so, Patty took in a deep breath – before she pulled off her glove and grasped Erin’s bare arm, the physicist tensing up when she felt the other woman’s fingers curl around her arm.

For a few seconds, nothing happened, just long enough for Erin to begin wondering if maybe, it wasn’t working, if Patty couldn’t use her powers on someone she considered a friend, even family; and then, she felt something, a strange pull in her chest, and Patty’s eyes flashed up white as her power kicked in.

It hurt, Erin quickly realized, it hurt a lot; it felt as if the historian’s power was sucking the very life force out of her, but despite how much it hurt, she couldn’t scream, only managing a strangled groan.

Just when she thought that she couldn’t take it anymore, that she just had to faint or maybe lose her mind from the overwhelming pain, Patty let go of her, and it stopped from one moment to the next; her knees buckled, but before she could end up falling to the floor, Holtzmann caught her, then carefully lowered herself into a crouch, until the physicist ended up resting in her lap, her head on the engineer’s shoulder.

“Erin”, she heard the blonde say, struggling to stay awake, telling herself that she had to be awake and aware when she’d be taken to the hospital, “sweetheart, stay with me. Okay? We’ll get you to the hospital now.”

They had debated if they should call an ambulance once Patty would have drained Erin enough, but had decided against it, all too aware that the physicist might end up in some different hospital, no matter if Gottreich Memorial was closest or not; and so, they had decided on another approach.

It might be suspicious to see a somewhat small and slim woman like Holtzmann carry Erin around as if the physicist weighed nothing, but this was a risk they were willing to take; and so, Holtzmann lifted Erin up on her arms once she could be reasonably sure the redhead wouldn’t faint, and got moving, hurrying out of the building, Abby and Patty right behind her.

Thankful for the mutation which gave her above average strength and stamina, Holtzmann jogged down the sidewalk, figuring an outright run would be too suspicious after all; still heads turned as she hurried past, several people exclaiming in shock when they saw how pale Erin was, quick to get out of the way when they saw the look on Holtzmann’s face.

It seemed to take forever for the hospital’s sliding doors to open, and Holtzmann fought the urge to let out an impatient growl; the people waiting in the lobby and the staff busy there looked at her in surprise as she rushed through the moment the doors had opened wide enough to let her.

“We need help here!” she bellowed, a nurse getting over her shock quickly and hurrying to her side, “the ghost, it… I don’t know, it grabbed her, did something to her, you have to help her!”

“I need a stretcher here!” the nurse called over her shoulder, then took a closer look at Erin; the physicist was close to passing out at this point, a deep-seated ache throbbing in her chest, the world blurring out of focus every now and then as she fought to stay conscious.

“What exactly happened?” the nurse demanded to know as two orderlies came hurrying over, pushing a stretcher along between them; Holtzmann didn’t need much acting skill to look worried and a bit helpless as shrugged, trying hard to not bounce Erin around too much with the small gesture.

“The ghost… kinda grabbed her”, she then lied, Patty and Abby nodding along behind her, the nurse apparently mistaking the guilty look on Patty’s face for concern – the historian had tried to let go before she’d take too much, but judging from how Erin looked now, that might not have worked out the way she had hoped, “and… I don’t know, it did something, she screamed and then she collapsed and now look at her!”

“Put her on the stretcher please”, the nurse advised in response, only now picking up on the ease with which Holtzmann held the physicist in her arms, a frown briefly creasing her brow as she watched the engineer lower the redhead onto the stretcher, but she regained her composure quickly, sounding nothing but kind and caring when she told the three remaining Ghostbusters that they’d surely find out what had been done to their friend and how to fix it.

“Holtz”, Erin brought out as the engineer had to let go of her hand so she could be taken to the emergency room; feeling bad for her, and not so sure anymore that this plan had been a good idea, Holtzmann reassured her that she’d be there the moment the doctor would be done with checking on her, Erin looking a bit relieved at that, but still pale and frightened as the orderlies hurried off with her, the engineer helplessly clenching her fists as she regretted having gone along with this idea.


	3. Chapter 3

At some point during the tests the hospital had performed, including an ECG and a blood sample, Erin had passed out, too exhausted after what Patty had taken from her; and as she came back around in a hospital room, she figured that it had been somewhat of a good thing, as it meant that there’d been no danger for her to accidentally reveal what really had happened.

“Hey”, she heard a very familiar and very welcome voice as she opened her eyes; her head hurt when she turned it, but still she smiled when her eyes met Holtzmann’s, the engineer smiling back at her, “welcome back.”

“How long…?” Erin started, then fell silent at how hoarse her voice sounded; while Holtzmann told her that she had been out cold when she had been brought into the room and that she had remained like this for the past hour, she reached for the glass of water she had readied on the nightstand, Erin giving her a grateful look as she helped her raise her head until her lips could close around the straw Holtzmann had wisely added.

“Patty told me to tell you how sorry she is”, the engineer told her once Erin had drank enough and the younger woman had lowered her head back onto the pillow with exceeding care, “she didn’t mean to drain you like that, apparently, she… took more than she thought.”

“I know she didn’t mean to”, Erin mumbled, her voice a bit stronger now, to Holtzmann’s obvious relief, the physicist not having to read her mind to know how worried she was about her, “I guess it’s harder to control than she thought… The hospital wouldn’t let all three of you stay?”

“Nope”, Holtzmann confirmed, making her grimace a bit, “they already tried to make trouble when I told them I would stay, buuuuut I might have… growled a bit at the doctor, so he decided that he’d make an exception.”

“Holtzmann”, Erin scolded, unable to hold back a smile though – she had never been at the receiving end of a Holtzmann growl, thankfully, but had seen it several times at this point, and knew how threatening it could be, and how well it worked, “the poor man. You shouldn’t scare the man responsible for my health.”

“Whaaaaaat”, the engineer replied, all innocence, to the physicist’s amusement, “I didn’t even show him my metal babies. Just growled a tiny bit.”

“Good thing you didn’t”, Erin replied, with a slight shake of her head, even though it still hurt, “who knows what sort of reaction that might have caused. Remember, we are here to help our client, not to give the doctors heart attacks.”

“Alriiiiight”, Holtzmann said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, earning another smile from her girlfriend, “fine. No metal babies then. Well, unless they give me reason to use them.”

Erin didn’t try to argue that point – Holtzmann had quite the temper, they all knew, a part of her mutation she couldn’t control as well as her claws, and while Erin knew that the engineer would never let said temper flare up with her, she was quick to get angry and protective of her, whenever someone or something made the mistake of threatening her.

Erin remembered well how she had reacted to Phil grabbing her arm, shortly after they had met and when they hadn’t even been dating yet; the memory of Holtzmann slamming him against the wall and keeping him there by pressing her claws to his throat still made her smile, even if it perhaps was mean to smile about something like that, but she figured that he had deserved it, after how he had treated her.

“So”, Holtzmann distracted her from those thoughts, smirking at her, a hint of mischief in her eyes now, “officially, I have to leave when visiting hours are over, at seven. Unofficially, I’ll make sure they don’t catch me and then come back to this room, cause there is no way I will leave you alone all night in a haunted hospital.”

“That’s sweet”, Erin smiled, reaching out to grasp Holtzmann’s hand, “and good to know, too, because if these ghosts are malevolent… did you sneak in your gloves?”

“Of course”, the engineer told her, almost offended at the idea that she might not have thought of doing so, patting her pockets for emphasis, “as useful as my metal babies are for many situations, going up against a ghost without juicing them up first is pretty much useless.”

Erin nodded her agreement, then tugged at Holtzmann’s hand, successfully pulling her in for a kiss; and once they had pulled apart again, the engineer gave her another smile, glancing at the door to make sure no doctor or nurse was about to barge in before she spoke up again.

“The doctor’s aren’t quite sure what to make of their results”, she let Erin know, not really surprising the physicist, “so they might keep you here for another day or two, for more tests. Which might be helpful, I somehow doubt the ghosts are just gonna march in here so we can bust them.”

“So you can bust them”, Erin corrected her, not having any gear with her, Holtzmann just shrugging – and making her wonder if the blonde planned something, Erin knowing her well enough now to be able to tell when an idea was forming in her mind; she gave her a curious look, but Holtzmann just smiled back at her innocently, clearly not willing to tell if she did have any plans.

“Well”, she said, instead of bringing up possible ideas Holtzmann might be having, “if necessary, Patty and I can just hold hands a bit again. Don’t look at me like that, I know you don’t like it, but you know we have a job to do here.”

“Well yes”, Holtzmann grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest, “but that doesn’t mean that we have to let Patty drain you again and again. I’m sure we can come up with some other way to do our job here.”

“Perhaps”, Erin nodded, glad when Holtzmann smiled a bit again in response, “but until we come up with something better, that might be the only way. Unless we solve this real quick, but I somehow doubt that, there has to be a reason why administration won’t let the employees call us…”

Even though she didn’t like the thought of Patty using her powers on Erin again, Holtzmann had to admit that this was a good point, and she grudgingly nodded; squeezing her hand, the physicist tried to make her feel better about the whole situation, but before she could say anything else, the door opened and a nurse poked her head in, giving the blonde a strict look as she saw her sit next to Erin’s bed.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Holtzmann”, she then said, with a pointed look at her watch, “but visiting hours are over, I have to ask you to leave now.”

“Yeah, sure”, Holtzmann replied at once, the nurse clearly surprised at how fast the blonde was agreeing; making sure that the nurse couldn’t see it, Holtzmann winked at Erin, then bent over her for a brief, but gentle kiss, reassuring her that she’d be back as soon as she could.

The nurse probably thought that she meant “in the next morning”, and not “within the hour”; and Erin made sure to keep her face carefully neutral, the nurse giving her a brief smile before she let her know that dinner would be brought soon.

“Thank you”, Erin gave back, Holtzmann sending another wink her way before she left the room; the nurse retreated again, as well, and for a while, Erin was alone, trying to not let this bother her, telling herself that soon, Holtzmann would find a way to sneak back in, and that she wouldn’t be alone for long.


	4. Chapter 4

Erin wasn’t quite sure when she had fallen asleep, and when she woke up again, she at first thought that it had been Holtzmann coming back who had woken her; as she looked around the room though, she was somewhat surprised to find herself alone… until the all too familiar blue glow started to shine from one corner of the room, and her mouth went dry as her heart started to beat faster in her chest.

One look told her that it was the little girl Rachel had been talking about, from the size and shape of the ghost alone; and just like Rachel had said, the girl was just standing there, and looked at her, her eyes oddly empty, her mouth slack as she stared at the physicist.

“…hello?” Erin said after the girl just had looked at her for half a minute, not having moved the slightest; she didn’t get any malevolent vibes from the ghost, but knew that this didn’t mean much – after all, Gertrude Aldridge hadn’t given off any such vibes either, she remembered, and still almost had given her an aneurysm when she had assaulted her through her ability to read minds.

“I’m Erin”, she added when the girl didn’t react, just kept staring at her, “I’m here to help you. Do you need help?”

Again the girl didn’t react, but just kept looking at her; the oddly empty gaze of her eyes was somewhat unnerving, Erin thought to herself, swallowing heavily as her mind raced, in an attempt to figure out how to handle this – she never had seen a ghost with such an empty gaze, she realized, they either had glared or had looked confused when they simply had had troubles with moving on, but none ever had looked at her like that, so empty and mindless.

She realized that there might only be one way to find out why this ghost was haunting the hospital, and swallowed heavily, not all too fond of the idea; she remembered all too well how it had ended the last time she had allowed ghost thoughts into her mind, but then, she told herself, she had to find out why this girl was haunting the place, especially if the girl wasn’t malevolent, but just lost.

And so, she took in a deep breath before she opened her mind, not just _listening,_ but _inviting_ , and the result was immediate and unexpected.

_A room a table lights flashing lights the doctor the old kind doctor who would help her help her with her cough help her with her sickness help her with everything a skeleton in the corner surely it is fake charts on the walls pictures and diagrams and words and numbers and the doctor is smiling and he always smiles he never stops smiling_

The sound of the door opening interrupted the connection as the ghost vanished from one moment to the next; the flow of images stopping so suddenly had a bigger effect than Erin had anticipated, a lance of pain rushing through her head as she flinched, eyes tearing up as she blinked into the sudden light falling into the room from the hallway.

“Erin?” Holtzmann whispered, glancing left and right before she slid into the room, “sorry it took me so long, security here is better than I…”

She fell silent and sniffed audibly, her eyes narrowing – before her instincts once more took over, the _snikt_ of her claws popping out surprisingly loud in the room, loud enough to make Erin flinch.

“Holtz”, she hissed, worried that someone might have heard, or might walk by and see her, a person who all too obviously wasn’t supposed to be there at this time, in the middle of the night, “the ghost is gone!”

Holtzmann was tense for another moment, her gaze darting back and forth, as if to make sure Erin was telling the truth; then, the claws slid back into her forearms, and she quickly stepped into the room and shut the door, Erin taking note of how her nostrils flared as she stepped closer to the bed, quickly figuring out that Holtzmann was making sure she wasn’t possessed, never having noticed how this changed a person’s smell, but knowing that her girlfriend’s fine nose could easily pick it up.

“Are you okay?” Holtzmann wanted to know, looking at her in concern, “did it hurt you?”

“No”, Erin reassured her, smiling weakly at her concern, once again touched at how protective the engineer could get of her, “it was the one Rachel told us she saw, you know, the little girl. She just stood there in the corner and stared at me and she looked… I don’t know, empty. Just so blank, I’ve never seen a ghost look like that before.”

“Huh”, Holtzmann let out, belatedly remembering that it might be wise to keep her voice down, not wanting to let a nurse or doctor wandering by outside to hear her, “okay? But she wasn’t malevolent?”

“No”, the physicist gave back at once, then shot her a sheepish glance, sounding a bit guilty as she went on, “I know for sure she wasn’t, because… don’t get angry, I kinda sorta… opened my mind to her. It didn’t seem as if she could communicate, so I tried to find out what’s going on with her that way.”

“Erin!” Holtzmann hissed, thankfully remembering to keep her voice low, Erin only looking more sheepish, “what! That’s dangerous! You know what happened when Gertrude Aldridge got into your mind!”

“I know, I was there”, Erin replied somewhat dryly, making it Holtzmann’s turn to look sheepish, “and I wouldn’t have done it with any other ghost I think but… with her… I don’t know, it just seemed… right? I think she wanted to tell me something, but couldn’t, she didn’t seem malevolent and when I let her into my mind…”

“Okay”, the engineer sighed, with a dismayed look at her girlfriend, “I guess that makes sense. Kind of. But still, that was reckless, and you always scold me when I do something reckless even though I heal so fast!”

“I know”, Erin had to admit, “but… I don’t know, but I just knew she wouldn’t try to hurt me. She wanted to communicate, I could tell, but she couldn’t, so I gave her a possibility to tell me something.”

She faltered a bit as she tried to figure out how to tell the engineer what she had seen; it wasn’t easy to put the images into words, but Erin did a well enough job to dispel Holtzmann’s worries, the blonde realizing that her girlfriend indeed only had done what she had thought was right and that there hadn’t been much of a choice, not with the ghost girl apparently unable to speak.

“I wonder what this is about”, the engineer pondered out loud once Erin had been finished, frowning a bit as she thought about what the physicist had told her, “think this doctor is who’s responsible for her being a ghost?”

“Possibly”, Erin nodded, glancing at the corner in which the ghost girl had appeared, as if she might make her come back by looking there often enough, “I don’t think she’d show him to me if he wasn’t somehow important. Perhaps she’ll come back and I can find out more then…”

“Be careful”, Holtzmann cautioned, grasping her hand and making her smile slightly, “even if she didn’t seem malevolent, you never know, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Alright? It’s bad enough that you’re here as it is, after Patty drained you.”

“That plan, reckless as it was, works though”, Erin pointed out, feeling a bit smug when Holtzmann huffed in response, “I got into the hospital without anyone getting suspicious and we made contact. Now we just have to figure out what the deal is with those other ghosts.”

“And why administration won’t let anyone call us”, Holtzmann thought back to a not unimportant detail Rachel had revealed during her visit, “I mean, they must have some sort of reason for that.”

Erin nodded her agreement to that, mind racing as she tried to find a way to actually get to speak to the person responsible for not allowing anyone to contact the Ghostbusters – all she had to do, she figured, was to get into the same room with whoever was responsible for the forbiddance, and then she could _listen_ , and perhaps find out what was going on.

“We need to find out who exactly is responsible for not letting anyone call us”, she said out loud, making Holtzmann nod at once, “and then get them into the same room with me. I have a feeling that, once we know this, things will become clearer, I could sense her fear when the girl showed me the images, but there was nothing which would justify this secrecy.”

“Maybe Abby should just teleport you in”, Holtzmann joked, making Erin smile as she shook her head; then, she pulled the blonde closer for a short, but tender kiss, for a few moments forgetting all about the ghosts and about reading minds, glad that Holtzmann was there with her and that she didn’t have to spend the rest of the night alone.


	5. Chapter 5

In the next morning, Holtzmann had to hide away in the adjoining bathroom to avoid being seen by the doctor when he came to check on Erin early in the morning; to the physicist’s relief, he apparently had no interest to look in the bathroom, but was fully focused on Erin from the moment on he had entered the room, smiling pleasantly at her as he moved to stand next to her bed.

“You look much better today than you did yesterday when you were brought here, Dr Gilbert”, he told her, Erin momentarily worrying that he’d tell her she could leave if she wanted to, not quite willing to go yet, feeling a bit relieved when the elder man went on, “but we still want to run some more tests, just to make sure the ghost’s attack didn’t cause any hidden damage we can’t assess right now. Are you alright with this?”

“Yes, of course”, Erin told him at once, making him smile again, “which sort of tests are we talking about?”

“Brain waves”, the doctor let her know, checking his chart as he spoke on and missing the brief look of dismay on her face, “and an ECG, perhaps take some blood, too, just to be on the safe side.”

“Of course”, Erin gave back, not liking the thought of having her brainwaves scanned – she had no idea if being a mindreader and gifted with a certain amount of telekinetic power actually made her brainwaves look different to those of someone who wasn’t a mutant, but she certainly didn’t want to find out with a bunch of doctors looking on.

On the other hand though, she knew that refusing the brain scan would be suspicious, as well; and so, she told herself that certainly, it would be okay, the doctor smiling at her at her agreement, clearly having noticed nothing of her brief dismay.

“Great”, he said, glancing at his chart again before he continued, “I’ll have those tests scheduled as quickly as possible. I recommend that you stay here until then, just in case.”

If it hadn’t been for a case, Erin would have suggested going home instead, not liking hospitals very much; she knew though that staying there as long as possible under the guise of a ghost having attacked her with some mystical power was necessary, and so, she just nodded, the doctor giving her another smile before he told her he’d let her know as soon as the first tests were ready.

“An intern will come by to take some of your blood soon”, he added, “we can do that right away. About the rest, I’ll let you know.”

_If this is something big, and I play it right, I’ll be so famous._

Erin kept her face perfectly neutral at this thought she picked up from the man as he left the room, by now quite good at not reacting visibly to the random stray thoughts which sometimes entered her mind; the moment the door had fallen close behind the doctor though, she rolled her eyes and shook her head, earning a questioning look from Holtzmann as her girlfriend re-emerged from the bathroom.

“Just this man’s thoughts”, Erin told her before she had the chance to ask, “apparently, he thinks that he’ll discover some great mystery when they do their tests on me and that he’ll get famous.”

“Aw, poor him”, Holtzmann snickered, making the physicist smile slightly; she shrugged, “if only he knew. Good thing though that they want to do this, that way, we can hang around here a bit longer and people won’t get suspicious.”

Erin nodded her agreement to that, then asked if Holtzmann had heard what the doctor had been saying; it didn’t surprise her that the engineer nodded, the physicist quite aware of her well above average hearing, a hint of nervousness showing on the redhead’s face now as she thought back to the CAT scan the doctor had suggested.

“I’ve never had one of those”, she confessed, “so I don’t know if… something will show, you know?”

“I’ve had one”, Holtzmann told her, and for a moment, she wondered why… until the engineer spoke on, and Erin’s heart clenched up, and she wanted to smack herself for bringing these memories up in her girlfriend’s mind, knowing how much they still hurt.

“In the lab”, the engineer said, grimacing a bit, “at MIT? I didn’t see it myself, but Gorin should have, I wanted to call her anyway, maybe she found out something now about that other girl at the new lab.”

Erin nodded, reaching out and grasping the engineer’s hand, earning a weak smile for the gesture; it had been months since Holtzmann had escaped from the military and their twisted projects yet again, but both Erin and she remembered the girl the engineer had seen there all too well, how young she had been and the tank she had been in, exactly like the one which had been used when the project people had gotten their hands on Holtzmann for the first time, all those years ago.

“I better make sure to have my guard up all the way”, she said out loud, in a weak attempt to distract Holtzmann from her painful past, “because I’m pretty sure that accidentally reading someone’s mind will change my brainwaves, and I don’t want them to realize what we all can do because of this ruse.”

“That would be bad, yup”, Holtzmann agreed, grimacing again; not many people knew that the Ghostbusters were mutants, the only regularly human member of their team being Kevin, and the mayor and his PA had told them that they wanted to keep it that way, with a lot of the public having no high opinion of mutants and of the powers said mutants had.

A knock on the door interrupted them, and momentarily, Erin was nervous again, realizing that Holtzmann hadn’t been home to change and was still in her Ghostbuster coveralls; then the door opened though, and when Rachel stepped in, the physicist immediately felt relieved, telling herself that certainly, the intern wouldn’t rat them out to anyone, even if she’d be able to figure out that Holtzmann had been here all night.

“Dr Gilbert, good morning”, Rachel greeted her, all cool professionalism, making Erin wonder if she didn’t realize why they were here, that this was no coincidence; then, Rachel entered the room and closed the door behind herself, and when she turned to look at Erin, the professional façade was gone, replaced by relief and happiness to see her.

“You’re here”, she stated as she hurried to the bed, making both Erin and Holtzmann smile at her relief and joy, “I wasn’t expecting you so soon! When they said you got hurt during a bust, I wasn’t sure if it’s real or…”

“It was a bit of a ruse to get in here”, Erin admitted, Holtzmann nodding her agreement, “but something did happen during that bust. They sent you to take some blood?”

“I volunteered”, Rachel told her, stopping next to the bed and readying her equipment, “when they said whom it was about. But I hope I didn’t raise suspicion.”

“You can just claim you’re a fan if anyone asks you”, Holtzmann told her with a smirk, making her smile as well; and then, while she got ready to take some of Erin’s blood, cleaning the crook of the physicist’s arm and carefully inserting the needle, Erin told her about the contact she had made with the little ghost girl, Rachel looking quite relieved at this proof that the ghost was real and that she hadn’t imagined it.

“We haven’t seen any of the others yet”, Erin regretfully let her know, making sure to not watch how her blood ran into the test tube Rachel had brought, “but it’s a start, and the girl seems benevolent or at least harmless. We’ll keep you updated.”

“Thank you”, Rachel sighed, finishing her work and carefully removing the needle, “I’m really grateful you’re here, the girl seems harmless like you said, but the other two… I still haven’t seen them, but my colleague has seen the old guy again, and she said he’s really creepy. Not to mention the one who actually attacks people.”

“Let us know in case another one of those attacks happens”, Holtzmann told her, making her nod, “or if you notice anything else, really. Even if it seems insignificant or just a bit weird, aright?”

Rachel nodded and reassured her she would, then let the couple know that she had to get back to work; she headed out while Erin got comfortable in bed again, knowing that for now, all they could do was wait, perfectly unaware that not only the little ghost girl knew she was there and that she’d end up encountering another one of the ghosts sooner that she suspected.


	6. Chapter 6

During the next two days, the little ghost girl didn’t show up again, to Erin’s dismay; Rachel visited her once and told her that the most malevolent ghost, the one who had attacked the nurse, had made another appearance, going after another nurse this time, and this time succeeding in throwing her down the stairs, unlike when it had tried for the first time.

Even though one of the ghosts had managed to actually hurt a member of the staff now, still no one called the Ghostbusters, as Patty reported during one of her visits to Erin; since they didn’t dare to leave Kevin alone, and Holtzmann refused to leave her girlfriend’s side, Abby and Patty took turns manning the firehouse, not wanting to miss any calls, not with Kevin’s still somewhat lacking skill when it came to taking notes.

“I can’t believe they don’t call us even now”, Patty grumbled, earning a dismayed nod from Erin, “you think they figured out why you’re really here, Erin?”

“If they did, no one has said anything”, Erin gave back, shrugging, “and they’re not letting it show. They still want to do the CAT scan later today, and these things are expensive, so I don’t think they would do it if they knew why we’re really here.”

“Good point”, Patty nodded, then her gaze moved to the engineer as she went on, “Holtzy, did Dr Gorin say anything about…?”

“Yeah I called her”, Holtzmann let her know, “but, according to her, there was nothing unusual about my CAT scan back then. But then, the only brain-related part of my powers is possibly my temper so…”

“So that doesn’t mean my CAT scan won’t show anything weird”, Erin sighed, feeling uneasy again, Holtzmann nodding in dismay – before Patty smirked, and shrugged, making them both look at her.

“So what if it does”, she said, earning looks of confusion, “just blame it on the ghost. It won’t look like something harmful, right? So you can just say that maybe, what the ghost did caused it.”

“I have no idea what they’re gonna look like”, Erin sighed, dismayed, “but I guess we’ll find out soon enough…”

“It’s gonna be okay”, Holtzmann reassured her, grasping her hand and giving it a tender squeeze, earning a weak smile from her girlfriend, “and I’ll make sure they let me into the little control thingy with you so we can talk, alright?”

Grateful, Erin nodded, not liking the thought of going into the narrow CAT scan tube without Holtzmann anywhere nearby; she would have preferred to have the engineer actually in the machine with her, but knew that this wasn’t an option, and figured that being able to hear her and talk to her would be better than nothing.

Holtzmann squeezed her hand again, and smiled at her; and even though she still felt nervous, Erin smiled back, and told herself it would be okay, no matter what the CAT scan would show, certain that, even if it would end up being strange, they’d find a way to explain it which would not reveal her mutation to anyone.

* * *

“Alright Dr Gilbert”, the doctor smiled at her as he made sure she laid comfortable, “we’ll start in a minute, if you’re ready and comfortable. Please remember to not move for the duration of the scan, and as you requested, your partner will be in the control room with us, so you can speak to her anytime you like, and can hear her responses too. Alright?”

Bravely, Erin nodded, telling herself again that it would be okay; the doctor smiled calmingly at her, then left the room to join a colleague and Holtzmann in the adjoining control room, Erin having a second to turn her head and lock eyes with the engineer before the platform she laid on started to glide forward, moving her into the tube.

“Can you hear me Dr Gilbert?” the doctor’s voice reached her ears once she was all the way in, the man sounding a bit tinny through the speakers, but the voice came through clear enough, and once she had confirmed that yes, she could hear him, Holtzmann spoke up next, the engineer’s voice being enough to soothe her anxieties, at least for a bit.

“I’m right here like we said, okay?” the blonde let her know, prompting her to let out a vaguely agreeing noise, “and we can hear you just fine too, sweetheart, so if anything happens, just yell.”

“Okay”, Erin gave back, then fell silent as the machine hummed to life around her; she closed her eyes as she tried to relax, reminding herself again that this was perfectly safe and that Holtzmann and two doctors were right there in the next room, and the engineer wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

In the control room, Holtzmann stood with her arms crossed over her chest, keeping her gaze on the machine, and pretty much ignoring the two doctors in the room with her; neither of them minded much though, both of them busy with keeping their eyes on the monitors and dials of the CAT scan, curious if it would show anything out of the ordinary.

When the lights in the main room flickered, they both looked up though, then exchanged an uneasy glance, and Holtzmann could tell at once that this wasn’t supposed to happen.

The lights flickered again, then dimmed, and this time, Erin noticed as well, her voice audibly trembling when she asked what was going on; one of the doctors hurried to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about, but unlike Erin, Holtzmann could see him and could smell him, and knew at once that he was lying.

Then, the smell of his fear mixed with another, all too familiar one, and her blood ran cold, the doctors both crying out in shock when the lamps went out, some of them exploding – followed by a loud metallic clank as a lid at the CAT scan tube slammed down, effectively locking Erin up inside.

“What the Hell!” one of the doctors cried out, moving to the control panel and nervously pushing a few buttons, looking at the tube every now and then as he did so; his colleague just stood and stared, flinched though when Erin’s voice came over the speakers, the physicist now not able to keep the fear out of her voice anymore, the emotion clearly audible despite the loud crackling sounds which now came out of the speakers, as well.

“What’s going on”, Erin demanded to know, finding herself in perfect darkness as the machine suddenly stopped, the lid at the end still closed though, “Holtz? What’s happening?”

“Not sure”, Holtzmann gave back, looking at the doctor at the control panel, where he was frantically pressing buttons, “doc…?”

“I don’t know”, he hissed, the engineer tensing up even further at this, “it’s not even supposed to do that, I don’t know how to get it to open again, I didn’t even know it has that sort of lid!”

“It doesn’t”, the other doctor told him tonelessly; that, and the look on his face was enough to spur Holtzmann into action, and she got moving, ignoring it when one of the doctors called out her name, perhaps in an attempt to stop her, or wanting to warn her.

She was glad that it was almost fully dark in the main room at this point, thanks to the broken lights; still she hoped that the doctors weren’t watching her too closely as she hurried to the machine, only speeding up when she heard Erin hammer against it from within.

Despite the hammering, the _snikt_ of one of her claws popping out was clearly audible, but at this point, Holtzmann didn’t care anymore if the doctors noticed or not – because not only she could hear hammering from within the machine now, but screams, as well, and she knew what it sounded like when Erin screamed in pain.

She didn’t bother to try and open the lid in a more harmless way, figuring that, if it wasn’t even supposed to be there, it wouldn’t open the regular way, either; instead, she just cut through it, sparks flying as the sharp blade effortlessly slid through the metal of the lid, a loud clang coming when it fell to the floor not even twenty seconds later.

Hurriedly, Holtzmann retracted the blade, then grabbed the platform and practically yanked it out; and moments later, Erin was in her arms, trembling and crying, blood trickling from her nose and staining the engineer’s coveralls as she held her close.

And a second later, the lights which were still intact came back on, and the strong ionization smell which had been filling Holtzmann’s nostrils vanished; even if the ghost had made an appearance though, she wouldn’t have noticed, fully focused on Erin as the physicist cried in her arms, too upset to speak, the engineer’s mind running wild as she tried to figure out what exactly just had happened.


	7. Chapter 7

It took Erin a while to calm down again, her nose having stopped bleeding by the time she had recovered enough to speak, shudders still running through her body every now and then as Holtzmann kept holding her, the physicist still clinging to the engineer even once she had calmed down a bit.

One of the doctors, Holtzmann noticed, looked at the lid she had cut from the machine, studied the clean slice through the metal, then glanced at her; she held his gaze, dared him to ask how she had done that, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, only looking at the clean cut once more before he seemed to remember that there was a highly upset patient in the room and that he’d better focus on her.

“I’m so sorry Dr Gilbert”, he said, wringing his hands, his colleague looking just as dismayed, “we have no idea how this could have happened!”

“Ghost”, Erin brought out in response, her hold on Holtzmann loosening a bit, giving the engineer a chance to reach into her pocket and retrieve a hanky, which she then used to carefully wipe the drying blood from Erin’s upper lip and chin, glad that her nose had stopped bleeding, “it was… in there with me, yelling at me. That’s why I have the nosebleed.”

She realized belatedly that she had given away more than intended with saying that – ghosts were a fairly new subject, and studied practically exclusively by the Ghostbusters, but that didn’t mean that nobody else could do some reading on it, and as far as Erin knew, nosebleeds hadn’t been documented as a symptom of a ghost making contact.

Apparently though, the doctors either hadn’t done any reading on the subject, or hadn’t noticed Erin’s little blunder, since neither of them commented on it; and from the look they exchanged, Erin could tell that they knew what she was talking about despite how upset she still was, feeling a bit better though when she felt Holtzmann rub her back.

“You know what she’s talking about”, Holtzmann said a bit accusingly, and they both had the decency to look somewhat ashamed, “the ghost. You’ve seen it?”

“No”, one of them mumbled, “neither of us but… we’ve heard of it. The nurse who got thrown down the stairs, we worked a lot with her, and we knew she wasn’t making it up when she said a ghost pushed her.”

“Good thing the Ghostbusters are here, huh”, Holtzmann stated, unable to keep a bit of sarcasm out of her voice, “even though apparently, the ghost knows it, too, going after Erin like that.”

“Not necessarily”, Erin pointed out, the doctors both apparently not sure if they should look worried or relieved, “it might have gone after anyone going into this machine. It just… it wanted to hurt, it was so malevolent…”

She let out a shaky breath, prompting Holtzmann to rub her back again; the doctors exchanged another look, then the older one of them cleared his throat, looking sheepish and suddenly finding it hard to look either of them in the eye when he replied.

“Most people working here are aware it’s around, you know”, he told the couple, not revealing anything new, but neither Erin, nor Holtzmann wanted to let him know that they already were aware of this, and so they both kept their expressions perfectly neutral, “it’s just… The big boss doesn’t want us to call anyone, and he said, this is a quote, certainly not those Ghostbusters. So we didn’t, none of us can afford to lose our job over this, you know.”

“Well, now we are here, and the ghost has attacked me”, Erin gave back, coming to her feet with some help from her girlfriend, giving her a reassuring look at the silently questioning one Holtzmann shot her, wordlessly telling her that she was okay, “so no one has to call us anymore, huh?”

“I’ll call Abby and Patty”, the engineer said once she could be sure Erin was reasonably steady on her feet, the younger doctor looking as if he wanted to protest, but changing his mind at the look the elder one shot him, “and then, I imagine we’ll have a little talk with this big boss of yours.”

The two men looked dismayed, but didn’t try to talk her out of it; they simply shrugged, then nodded, one of them shooting another uneasy look at the lid Holtzmann had cut off while the couple left the room together, heading back to Erin’s room, eager to get Abby and Patty there as well so they could finally make their work at this place official.

* * *

“What do you mean, they won’t let us see them”, Abby demanded two hours later, glaring at the unfortunate man who had come to Erin’s room to bring the group those news, the man cowering at her heated gaze, “a ghost attacked one of us in this very hospital, and we’re the Ghostbusters, so where’s the problem?”

“Administration does not wish to work with you”, the man, a clerk from the administration’s office, told them, earning another glare from Abby, even though she knew that it wasn’t really his fault, that he just had been chosen to be the bearer of these bad news, “they say that… that they don’t want the negative publicity of having ghost hunters work here and that they will settle this on their own.”

“We are not ghost hunters, we’re the Ghostbusters”, Erin corrected, feeling annoyed now as well, especially after how the ghost had attacked her during the CAT scan, not wanting to imagine what else might have happened, had Holtzmann not been there to cut off the added lid with her claws, “we do government funded work!”

“Believe me, _I_ know that”, the man replied, giving her an unhappy and apologetic look, “but the head of administration has no interest in letting you work here. And we can’t overrule that, I’m sorry. We’ve been told to do the ECG with you, Dr Gilbert, just to be on the safe side, and if nothing suspicious shows up during that, we’re supposed to send you home.”

“Y’all are gonna have even more of that bad publicity when that ghost hurts someone else and it gets out”, Patty pointed out, earning a helpless shrug from the man, and letting out a sigh as she knew just as well as Abby that it wasn’t his fault, “so perhaps your big boss might rethink his decision.”

“Not up to me”, he replied with another helpless shrug, while Erin took note of the way Holtzmann was staring at him now, and of how she had started rubbing the skin between her knuckles; before she could say something though, or try to calm her down by grasping her hand or touching her arm, the blonde got up from her chair, with enough force to make it fall over, the noise making the other three Ghostbusters and the office clerk flinch.

“Enough talking to you, then”, the engineer snarled at the startled man, earning a wide-eyed look – and then, before anyone could try to stop her, she marched out of the room, the others staring after her in shock for a moment before they hurried to follow her, eager to stop her before something could go quite wrong.


	8. Chapter 8

“Holtzmann!” Erin said urgently as she hurried to catch up with the blonde, reaching out to touch her shoulder, not grabbing her though – she was pretty much the only one allowed to touch Holtzmann at all when she was in such an angry state, and even for her, grabbing her and trying to hold her back from walking on might be somewhat dangerous, and so, she limited herself to just briefly touching her, her concern only growing when Holtzmann barely reacted to her.

“Holtzmann, just take a minute, please”, she wasn’t willing to give up yet though, people shooting them worried looks as they passed, and she figured they had to be quite the sight, Holtzmann marching along with her eyes blazing and her fists clenched, Erin trailing along behind her in her white hospital gown – thankful that it wasn’t one of those with a slit at the back, not eager to moon everyone who’d look at her back – and Abby and Patty following Erin, both of them in their Ghostbusters coveralls, having been somewhat ready to bust the hospital’s ghosts, none of them having expected this continued resistance from administration.

“We can all go talk to them together”, she added when Holtzmann, to her relief, at least slowed down a bit, even though she didn’t stop walking completely, “just… take one minute, calm down a bit, okay?”

At this, Holtzmann stopped, and for a second, Erin dared to hope… until the engineer turned to look at her, and their eyes met, and she saw the rage in the other woman’s gaze, nearly taking a step back even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her.

“I think we’ve been calm long enough”, the blonde pressed out between grit teeth, “they let these ghosts roam around unchecked. They did nothing even when one of them started attacking people. And now it’s attacked you, it hurt you, it could have hurt you worse. They’ve had their chance to contact us, they didn’t, so now, I will _contact_ them.”

She turned and marched on, fists still clenched tightly at her sides; and while Erin was grateful that the claws hadn’t made an appearance yet, in a hospital filled with people who were not supposed to know that the Ghostbusters were mutants, she still worried as she hurried after her.

She knew better than to try and stop her again though, after the rage she had seen in the engineer’s eyes; and so, Erin just followed her as she made her way to the hospital’s top floor, fingers fidgeting at her side as she couldn’t help herself, but just had to imagine all the ways this could end badly.

Thanks to the speed with which Holtzmann walked, she reached the administration’s offices fairly quickly; several clerks looked up in surprise when she marched past them, and one of them called out to her, but she ignored the woman with ease, pushing the door leading to the hospital director’s office open so forcefully that it banged against the wall, the elder man looking up in surprise at her forceful entrance.

Then, he got a closer look at her coveralls, at the ones Abby and Patty were wearing, and sneered, leaning back in his seat, either missing the rage in Holtzmann’s eyes or not caring.

“The Ghostbusters”, he stated, raising an eyebrow as Holtzmann stopped in front of his desk, Erin standing next to her and Abby and Patty behind the couple, “I don’t think we have an appointment. How can I help you?”

“You have a haunted hospital, and you know it”, Holtzmann bluntly gave back, part of her a bit impressed at how calmly he held her glare, even though, she figured, this calm might vanish fairly quickly once he realized what she had hidden within her forearms, “with at least one malevolent ghost. A ghost which attacked two nurses and one of our team.”

“I am aware of this, yes”, the man replied, still infuriatingly calm, “but as my assistant told you, we do not need your service. We will deal with this.”

“You can’t”, Abby was the one to answer, just as blunt as Holtzmann, the engineer just glaring while Erin tried to _listen_ , to learn why this man was so adamant at keeping them from doing their job, “not without our help. We have the equipment you need to get rid of a ghost permanently. You don’t.”

“I assure you we will be fine without your help”, the man gave back, still not seeming all too perturbed, “now please leave, before I have to alert security.”

He reached for his pen again, apparently done talking to them and believing that they would just leave; and if Erin hadn’t been trying to read his mind, she might have reacted fast enough, but as it was, she only realized what Holtzmann was about to do when the engineer already moved, knowing there was no chance for her to stop the blonde.

Her hand shot out before the hospital director could pick up his pen, and she grabbed him around the wrist, her unexpected strength making him look up at her in surprise; holding his gaze, Holtzmann held back the urge to growl at him or to let her claws pop out, unable to keep herself from gritting her teeth though.

“The ghost attacked not only members of your staff”, she told the man, and _something_ in her eyes finally made his calm façade crack, visible fear filling his eyes, an emotion which only grew when he tried to pull his wrist out of Holtzmann’s grasp and had to realize how strong exactly she was, her fingers like a steel clamp around his wrist, “it also attacked Erin. If you think we will just walk away after this, you’re very, _very_ mistaken.”

“Well, you can’t work here without being officially hired”, the man let her know, somehow managing to keep the tremble out of his voice even though he still looked noticeably less calm than he had before Holtzmann had grabbed him, “and we are not hiring you. I’m sorry that you got a fright, Dr Gilbert, but you didn’t get hurt, did you.”

“Well, I did have a nosebleed”, Erin pointed out, sounding a bit absent-minded as she still tried to read his mind, finding it much harder than she had expected – if she hadn’t been sure that he had no idea about her mind-reading powers, she would have suspected that he was blocking her somehow, but no one but the Ghostbusters themselves, Holtzmann’s mentor Dr Gorin, the mayor and his PA knew, so Erin figured that there was no way in Hell the man could know.

“No lasting damage done, then”, he replied, not appearing all too perturbed by the fact that one of his patients had been given a nosebleed by an actual ghost, “and, as I said, Gottreich Memorial has no interest in employing your… organization. I would appreciate it if you would let me go now, Dr Holtzmann, this is hardly professional behaviour.”

_You’re lucky she’s not pinning you against the wall with her claws,_ Erin thought to herself, remembering well how Holtzmann had done this exact to her ex, shortly after they had met; apparently, Holtzmann was aware that this wasn’t going to be exactly helpful, and so, she refrained from pinning the unfortunate man, didn’t let go of his arm though, either, Erin figuring that now was a good moment to step in, especially since she still couldn’t get into his mind.

She reached out to touch Holtzmann’s shoulder, figuring that it’d be smarter to have her let go of the man before he really would call security; and just then, she picked up something from him, just a single flash of an image, and she froze in mid-movement.

“Holtz”, she brought out after needing a moment to handle this without letting the man notice anything had happened, he might not know that she could read minds, but still, she figured, it was better to be safe than sorry, “Holtz, come on, this isn’t leading anywhere.”

Incredulous, Holtzmann looked at her, ready to ask her if this was it, if she would just give up like that… then their eyes met, and she saw how shaken up Erin was all at once, and let go of the man immediately, her concern for her girlfriend pushing everything else aside.

She knew better than to ask her right there, in front of the director, what was wrong; instead, she just gave him another look full of disdain, then turned and took tender hold of Erin’s arm, leaving the office with her, Abby and Patty following suit after a moment, not having caught on as quickly as Holtzmann had, but figuring that _something_ had to have happened.

None of them asked though, not as long as other people were within earshot; and so, as they walked back to Erin’s room, she had time to think about what she had seen, and even though it had been a singular and somewhat simple image, thinking back to it sent a shiver up and down Erin’s spine.

It had looked like an icepick, and there had been blood at the sharp tip.


	9. Chapter 9

The moment they were back in Erin’s room and the door had been closed, Holtzmann turned and gave her a questioning look; still feeling dismayed by what she had seen, Erin grimaced as she sat down on the bed, her expression prompting Abby and Patty to give her concerned looks, as well.

“I saw something”, she said, not bothering to beat around the bush, “when Holtzmann was… talking to the director. I had to try for a while to get into his mind, which is suspicious enough all by itself, and then, when I did pick something up… it looked like an icepick, and there was blood on it.”

“Yikes”, Abby let out, grimacing, “that’s… unsettling. And that is all you could get from him?”

“Sadly, yes”, Erin sighed, with another look of dismay, prompting Holtzmann to grasp her hand again and give it a reassuring squeeze, “I wish I could have gotten more, but, like I said, it was surprisingly difficult. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s been blocking me on purpose, but he has no idea I can do this, so…”

“Are we sure he has no idea?” Patty wanted to know, frowning, “the mayor said it’s gonna be kept quiet, but do we know for sure?”

“Guess not”, Erin had to admit, “but even if he knew, knowing alone isn’t enough to keep a skilled mindreader out. And I dare to say I’m quite good at this by now.”

All three nodded at this, then exchanged uneasy looks, not quite sure what to think of this new information; Erin let out an unhappy sigh as she got comfortable in the hospital bed, then shrugged, feeling oddly dejected when she spoke up again.

“Well, I don’t think we’ll have much time to find out anything”, she told the other three, fingers picking at the blanket without her truly noticing, “because you heard what he said. They’ll do the ECG as fast as possible and then, if nothing is weird about that, they’ll send me home. And once they did so, we have no legal grounds to come back here, not if the director doesn’t allow it.”

“Maybe we should talk to the mayor”, Patty suggested, the other three looking at her, “see if he can make them let us do our job here? I mean, we got two of the team who’ve seen more than one ghost, actually got attacked by one of them, there must be something he can do, right?”

“Not so sure”, Erin gave back, frowning to herself as she thought it through, “this is a privately owned hospital, so he might not have much clout with them. It might be worth a try though, at least one of those ghosts is malevolent, we can’t just walk away and leave them to roam freely.”

A knock at the door prompted her to interrupted herself so she could call out “yes?”, not surprised to see that it was Rachel who entered; the woman looked a bit sheepish, and cleared her throat as she greeted the four women, fidgeting a bit when she continued.

“Um, we’ve heard you’ve been to the director”, she let the group know, still appearing a bit nervous, but now also having a hint of admiration in her voice, “actually, everyone is talking about it. I wish I could have been there to see it.”

“I wish it would have done some good”, Erin sighed, even gladder now that Holtzmann hadn’t made use of her claws during the confrontation with the director, not wanting to imagine how the hospital staff might have reacted to the revelation that she was a mutant, “but sadly, it didn’t. We were told that they’ll do the ECG and, if that doesn’t show anything weird, they’ll send me home.”

“Yes, I know”, Rachel sighed, then brightened visibly, “but I cashed in a few favours people owed me, so that ECG won’t happen until tomorrow afternoon. I know it’s not much time, but…”

“It’s better than nothing”, Erin smiled, touched by the support at least a few members of the staff showed, well aware of the risks they all were taking for them, “thank you. I’m not sure we can resolve everything, but maybe at night, once the director went home…”

“I’ll get the gear”, Holtzmann said, coming to her feet; a second later, Patty realized that it might be somewhat suspicious if Holtzmann carried all four proton packs on her own, and got up as well, exclaiming that she’d help, the two women hurrying out of the room while Abby turned to Rachel.

“Thanks for your help, as Erin said”, she said, smiling a bit in an attempt to make the younger woman feel less nervous, “we all know that this is a great risk you’re taking, but we have to ask another favour. Can you help us make sure that we can avoid having to leave at visiting hours?”

“I think so, yes”, Rachel gave back after thinking about this for a moment, “I can try to get the evening rounds for this floor, then it’ll be me checking in on you, Dr Gilbert, instead of some doctor who has no real idea why you guys are here. I’ll let you know if it works out.”

“Thanks again”, Abby smiled at her, the young woman smiling back at her before she let them know she’d go get everything organized then, and left the room; glad that they at least had some sort of plan now, Erin allowed herself to relax, even though she still worried that one afternoon and one night might not be enough to find and catch the malevolent ghost, telling herself though that surely, everything would work out just fine.

* * *

Just as Rachel had offered, she made sure to be the one who made evening rounds, and that nobody else from the staff realized that there were three extra people who weren’t supposed to be there in Erin’s room; and she let them know that the nurses who’d have the night shift were in on what was going on, and thus wouldn’t rat them out, either.

“That’s lucky”, Abby commented once Rachel had finished checking on Erin and had left, “a bit too lucky maybe? I don’t want to sound paranoid but…”

“It does seem like a bit much of a coincidence”, Erin agreed, to Abby’s obvious relief, “but who knows how many of the staff are actually in on it, as Rachel put it, and just don’t dare to say anything, what with the charming boss they have sitting up there on the top floor.”

She had been planning to say more, but before she could do so, the hair at the back of her neck rose up straight, and she fell silent, eyes going wide; next to her, Holtzmann took in an audible breath through her nostrils, and her eyes narrowed, her claws popping out with an audible scraping noise when Abby sat up straight and her face went oddly slack, as if she’d had a stroke.

“Train”, Abby said, sounding strangely dull, so unlike her normal tone that it sent a cold shiver down Erin’s spine, and when the researcher looked at her, this only got worse, as she could tell at once from the look in her eyes what Holtzmann already had smelled.

And even though she should be terrified, after what had happened the last time one of them had gotten possessed, Erin found herself strangely unafraid, reaching out to place a calming hand on Holtzmann’s arm, her eyes never leaving Abby’s, the feeling that whatever the ghost within her had to say was important so strong that she couldn’t ignore it, and she barely noticed how she held her breath as she waited for Abby to speak on.


	10. Chapter 10

“Train”, Abby said again, in that oddly empty voice, with that just as empty look on her face, and suddenly, Erin knew where she had seen this look before – on the face of the little ghost girl who had shown up during her first night in this hospital, “Train. Sour. Ball.”

“That makes no sense”, Patty whispered, exchanging an uneasy look with Holtzmann, neither of them liking the thought of this ghost within their friend, but at least, it didn’t seem as if said ghost was planning to harm Abby or them, “Erin, does this…?”

“Not to me”, Erin replied with a shake of her head, dismayed – she knew that Patty could use her powers to get the ghost out of Abby, and was for this very reason somewhat glad that Abby had been the one to get possessed, and not Patty herself, “um… girl? Can you tell us your name?”

“Train”, Abby said again, which was not exactly helpful and, Erin assumed, not the ghost girl’s name either; she felt helpless as she exchanged a look with Holtzmann, the engineer having made her claws retract again at this point, but still being tense, something Erin could easily tell from the way she was rubbing the skin between the knuckles, and she carefully reached over to place a hopefully calming hand on the blonde’s forearm, her eyes never leaving Abby’s though.

“We want to help you”, she said again, just like she had when the girl had appeared to her for the first time, “but you need to tell us what you need so we can do that. Can you tell us? Or show us? Show me? Like you did before?”

“Train”, Abby said yet again, not very helpful – before _something_ changed in her eyes, and she sat up straighter, her lips twitching as she struggled to form another word.

“Ba”, she brought out, Erin tensing up as she realized that something important was about to happen, even though she wasn’t quite sure what it would be, “ba. Base. Base. Train.”

And then, before anyone had the chance to react, and perhaps try to stop her, the ghost within Abby made use of the researcher’s power, leaving a cloud of black and blue smoke much larger than usual behind when she vanished into nothingness.

* * *

“Shit!” Holtzmann was the first to react, somehow managing to fight down the urge to let her claws pop out, knowing they wouldn’t do any good, but still the skin between her knuckles itched, so much that it was almost unbearable; Erin could only agree with that sentiment, wringing her hands while Patty practically shot to her feet, eyes wide.

“Shit”, Holtzmann repeated, looking around as if doing so would magically make Abby come back, “that girl could have taken her anywhere!”

“No”, Erin gave back at once, making the engineer’s gaze focus on her, the worry she saw in the blue eyes making her heart clench up, “I don’t think she left the hospital, I’m pretty sure she couldn’t even if she wanted to. This is where something horrible happened to her, perhaps the place where she died, she’s tied to it, so they are still somewhere in here. We just have to find them… her…”

“What was it that she said?” Patty threw in with a frown, making them both look at her, “except for the train and ball stuff? Base. She said base. You think she was talking about the basement?”

“Worth a shot”, Holtzmann gave back, running a nervous hand through her hair, “it’s not like we have any other ideas. Okay, let’s go. Erin, I brought your coveralls, I mean, you even make the hospital gown look good but busting a ghost in that…”

“Thank you”, Erin said, even managing a small smile; Holtzmann smiled back at her, then retrieved the coveralls from the duffel bag she had brought, giving the gear she had brought in in said bag a quick check while Erin went to change.

It wasn’t exactly inconspicuous anymore, Erin thought to herself as she pulled on the coveralls, walking through the hospital like this, in their work clothes and with their equipment; with the ghost having possessed one of them though, she figured that at this point, they didn’t really need the approval of administration any longer.

Several patients and staff members looked at them in surprise and a few with admiration as they walked out of Erin’s room and headed to the stairwell; Erin took a moment to ask a nurse if they had seen Abby, even though she knew it was unlikely, what with the brunette having used her teleport, but still she felt oddly disappointed when the woman shook her head.

“We need basement access”, she let the nurse know, not letting her disappointment show, “can we just walk in there or do we need a key?”

“Patients aren’t supposed to go down there, it’s locked”, the nurse replied, digging through her pockets as she went on, “wait, let me give you the key, but if anyone asks, you didn’t get it from me, alright?”

“Thank you”, Erin gave back, accepting the key once the woman had found it; now that this problem had been taken care of, the group got moving again, quickly moving down to the basement, even though they slowed down again once Erin had unlocked the door leading there and they stepped into the dark hallway.

“Okay, where’s the light switch”, Patty half said, half asked, already looking around, “we’re not gonna search for a possessed team member in the dark.”

She let out a noise of triumph when she spotted the light switch and flicked it upwards, bright neon light pushing the shadows aside as the lamps flickered to life; then, she frowned as the lights gave them a better look at the state of the basement, the dust and dampness making it quite obvious that this part of the hospital hadn’t been used in quite a while.

“You’d think they’d at least use it for storage or something”, Erin pondered, making both Patty and Holtzmann nod, “all this room and it’s just… ignored? That seems weird.”

“Well, we are talking about a hospital which is haunted by at least three ghosts, two of which we have seen ourselves”, Patty pointed out, “and the big hospital boss wouldn’t let anyone do anything about those. Who knows what other weird stuff they got going on here.”

“Probably why he wouldn’t let us get to work”, Holtzmann commented, eyes focused on the dust on the floor in an attempt to spot any tracks which might have been left down there recently, “if there’s funky stuff going on apart from the ghost, outsiders poking around at his hospital will be the last thing the guy needs.”

Erin nodded, then strained her ears, in an attempt to figure out where exactly Abby was, if she even was down here; she didn’t want to think about the possibility that she wasn’t, that she had been wrong when she had assumed that the girl couldn’t leave the hospital – because if she had been, she had to admit to herself, there was practically no way they’d be able to find Abby, not with the researcher’s teleport powers.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost bumped into Holtzmann as the engineer stopped walking all of a sudden; before she could ask what was going on though, Holtzmann audibly sniffed, her eyes narrowing as she took in the scents all around them.

“I think I smell something which could be from Abby”, she then said, and despite their dire situation, Erin was once more fascinated by how good her sense of smell seemed to be, “just follow me you guys, before I lose it.”

Speeding up, she briskly marched down the hallway, Erin and Patty right behind her; and as they followed her, Erin allowed herself to get her hopes up again, telling herself that certainly, everything would work out just fine and that soon, the team would be complete again, once they’d gotten the ghost out of Abby and had a chance to actually find out what said ghost wanted.


	11. Chapter 11

Holtzmann led them to one of the many doors lining the dusty hallway, the unerring way she approached said door telling the other two that the scent she was following had to be pretty strong, even if they couldn’t smell it; Erin expected her to burst through the door in a blaze of snarling and claws, but instead, the engineer stopped in front of it, pressed one ear against it and sniffed audibly again, earning questioning looks from both Erin and Patty.

“Okay”, she mumbled after a few seconds of just listening, “there’s definitely someone in there. Not a hundred percent sure it’s Abby, being possessed changes the scent, but…”

“But if it is someone else, we should find out what they are doing down here”, Erin said, making them both nod; Holtzmann pulled back from the door, exchanging a look with the other two to make sure they were ready – before she grasped the knob and turned it, opening the door slowly, not quite sure what to expect.

She had a second to see the blue glow they all knew well by now, the pale blue of a ghost manifesting – before the apparition rushed at her, her claws popping out in response from pure instinct, but before she could do more than let the blades slide out from between her knuckles, the ghost slammed into her, with enough force so her feet actually left the floor, both Erin and Patty wincing at the metallic _chink_ which echoed through the hallway when the ghost slammed the blonde against the opposite wall and the back of her head connected with it.

The ghost cackled maliciously as it rushed down the hallway, out of sight; Erin, having started to reach for her proton gun, stopped in mid-movement and rushed to Holtzmann’s side, not quite surprised, but still relieved when the engineer’s gaze was clear and aware as it met hers.

“I’m fine”, the blonde said before Erin had the chance to ask, more annoyed than anything else as she stepped away from the wall and retracted her claws, “and once again glad my bones are indestructible. Damn, that ghost was fast!”

“Wonder what it was doing in there”, Patty pondered, eying the door through which the ghost had come, “we better keep this room in mind and check it out again once we found Abby.”

“Agreed”, Erin nodded, digging through her pockets for a pen so she could mark the door – but before she had a chance to find one, Holtzmann had brought out one of her claws, and used the sharp tip to slash an X into the door, the physicist giving her a strict look once the blade had been retracted.

“I would have found my marker eventually, you know”, she said, “and that would have washed off again! Your little mark there won’t.”

Holtzmann just smirked and shrugged, and after a moment, Erin smiled as well, shaking her head; then, they moved on, on their guard now more than ever, proton guns out and ready, all three of them now not only determined to find Abby, but to give that ghost a nasty surprise, should it decide to attack them again.

* * *

With the basement as big as it was, Erin told herself, they should expect it to take a while to find Abby, if she was down there; still her hopes got more and more diminished the longer they were walking through the dark, dusty hallways, and she had to ask herself again what they would do if they wouldn’t find Abby there.

_You can try finding her with your power,_ she told herself, trying to reassure herself that things would be okay even if the ghost girl had taken Abby to some random place outside the hospital, _it didn’t work back when the military had Holtzmann but maybe…_

A noise up ahead interrupted her train of thought, and from how Holtzmann and Patty stopped dead in their tracks, she could tell they had heard it, too; they exchanged a look, silently confirming to each other that each of them had heard it – before they got moving, hurrying down the hallway, to the door from behind which the sound had come.

This time, Holtzmann was determined to not let the ghost get the jump on her again, should it be behind that door; she let her claws slide out, making sure to do so slowly so the ghost wouldn’t hear the metallic scrape, even though this made the pain of it even worse, then pushed the little buttons built into her gloves, grimacing at the audible crackling noise which filled the quiet hallway when proton streams wrapped around the sharp blades.

“Um”, she then realized a little problem about being ready for the ghost like this, “one of you open the door? I’ll poke a hole in it. Or three.”

Nodding, Erin stepped forward, making sure to not stand between Holtzmann and the doorway as she reached for the knob; she turned it, pushed the door open and quickly stepped back, not wanting to be the one to be bum-rushed by the ghost this time, Holtzmann ready to make use of her claws, only to frown when nothing happened.

Not willing to get surprised again though, she kept the blades out and the proton streams up as she slowly entered the room, said streams lighting up the darkness enough to let her see the figure standing in the middle of said room, swaying back and forth slightly, with their back to the door, only a vague shape visibly in the weak proton stream light.

Despite the lack of light, Holtzmann recognized the figure at once, her eyes going wide behind her yellow tinted glasses – before she deactivated the proton streams and rushed forward, all caution forgotten, despite the warning Erin called out from somewhere behind her.

“Abby!” she said, while Patty found yet another light switch and flicked it, bright neon light pushing the darkness aside, “thank God we found you! Are you—”

She had been planning to ask Abby if she was okay, but just as she got close enough to touch the researcher, she turned around with surprising speed; Holtzmann had a second to realize that her face still was so oddly slack, and that her scent was just _off_ – then Abby had pushed her aside, not nearly as roughly as the other ghost had, but with enough force so she had to flail around somewhat ungracefully to keep from falling on her butt, and the researcher’s empty eyes focused on Erin, the physicist swallowing heavily as her best friend slowly raised one hand and waved her closer.

“Holtz, Patty”, she said, not looking away from Abby though, not daring to break eye contact, “she wants to tell me something, like I let her back in the hospital room. I don’t think she’ll want to harm me, but if it looks like she is…”

“I’ll get her out of Abby in a heartbeat”, Patty promised, while Holtzmann grit her teeth and clenched her fists, but didn’t protest; Erin nodded, still not breaking eye contact, and while Patty pulled off her glove, the redhead took another step closer to Abby, giving her best to look harmless and non-threatening though, not wanting to spook the ghost girl within her friend.

“I’m ready”, she said, smiling, even though she felt nervous – the girl hadn’t hurt her when she had let her look into her mind the first time, but she knew that this was no guarantee for anything, steeling herself against the possible pain as she opened her mind—

_\--and here is the doctor again, smiling, always smiling just like the skeleton behind him the one which surely must be fake and she likes him cause he talks to her like she’s a grown up like she’s smart like them smart like her mom smart like her dad he makes her feel smart and he’s always nice always smiling but he stops smiling now and she wonders if she has done something wrong._

_“I talked to your mother”, he says, and he frowns a bit, she doesn’t want him to frown, she wants him to smile, “and she has told me a few troubling things. You’ve been bad, haven’t you.”_

_She can’t help it, she starts to cry, she doesn’t want to be bad, but sometimes she can’t help it, and mom knows it’s not her fault, she just can’t help it, but mom knows, she knows, right? He sees that she’s about to cry and he smiles again and that is good, she wants him to smile, wants him to be nice, and he asks her if she wants him to help her not be bad anymore, and she nods, of course she does._

_He smiles again, and pats her hair, like her uncle always does, and that makes her smile again, too, and he says that he’ll get something to help her be nice and while he goes she looks around again, not at the skeleton because it is scary but at the poster on the wall, posters are nice and colourful even though this one is a bit weird._

_She’s not sure what the colourful picture is, it’s probably grown up stuff and the light shines on it weirdly so she can’t really see much of it cause of the glare but she can read a bit and so she can read what it says on top of the poster, even though it makes no sense, and she whispers the words out loud, reading is easier when she can read the words out loud._

_“Train. Sourball. Laboratory.”_

_The doctor comes back and smiles and tells her everything is ready, she just has to lie back and hold still and she’ll never be bad again._

The flow of images ended as abruptly as it had begun, and Erin stumbled back, eyes wide, horror in her gaze and heart; for a few more moments, Abby held her gaze in silence, her mouth quivering now though, the first time that she saw the ghost girl show any sort of emotion, even if she was using a face not her own to do so.

“Erin?” she heard Holtzmann say, the engineer’s arm steadying her around the waist a second later, “sweetheart? Are you okay?”

“I know now”, she brought out, her voice trembling as she clung to the blonde, suddenly in dire need of being close to her, of reassuring herself that she hadn’t been there in person, but that it had been shown to her by this poor girl, the image of the ice pick flashing through her mind again unbidden, “I know what he did. To her. And why she can’t find rest.”


	12. Chapter 12

As if this had been what the girl had needed to her, she left Abby’s body, a fine blue cloud which streamed from the researcher’s nostrils and mouth; and the moment the last bit of said cloud had left her, her knees buckled, Patty catching her before she could fall though, a low groan coming from her as she struggled to not throw up, faint, or possibly both.

“Ugh”, she let out, Erin telling herself that she had to pull herself together, barely consciously aware of pulling her shields up again – she knew what she needed to know, and she did not need to see any more of this, “what… where am I?”

“The hospital’s basement”, Patty let her know, glad that Abby seemed to be fully herself again, with no trace of the possession left, “Erin’s little ghost girl friend possessed you. You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I don’t think so”, Abby mumbled, coming to her feet again with some help from Patty, the ghost girl at this point having materialized a few feet away and watching them, with that empty expression again, one which made Erin’s heart hurt now that she knew what it meant, “she didn’t hurt any of you guys, did she?”

“No”, Erin reassured her, “I think she only possessed you to get us down here. She wants to show us something, she showed me, but… I think it’s not all she wants us to see.”

She looked at the ghost girl again, and as if in confirmation, the ghost got moving, floating past Abby and her, and to the door; and after a moment, the Ghostbusters followed her, Holtzmann and Erin in the lead, Abby and Patty right behind them, none of them having their proton gun out yet, but Erin keeping her hand close to the proton shotgun, ready to pull it from the holster the moment it’d seem as if the ghost who had thrown Holtzmann across the hallway would make another appearance.

She wondered who he was as the four of them followed the ghost girl, if he was connected to all of this on a deeper level than they all realized at this point; as if she had picked up on her thoughts, the ghost girl stopped and turned to look at her, then floated back the way they had come from, and somehow, Erin wasn’t really surprised when she led them to the door Holtzmann had marked earlier.

Being a ghost, she didn’t need to wait for any of them to open it for her, but simply floated through it, vanishing through the wood; the Ghostbusters exchanged another look, then Holtzmann stepped forward, figuring that she should go first, knowing that, if the other ghost would be back in there and would end up attacking her, she’d be able to heal any damage it might do much quicker than any of the others.

Still she was relieved when no blue, blurry figure came rushing at her as she took a step into the room, then groped for the light switch; she found it quickly, and as the overhead neon lights flickered to life, Holtzmann froze, her throat suddenly dry, her eyes going wide.

“Holtz?” Erin said behind her, having noticed how she had tensed up; she had been planning to ask her what was wrong, but as she took a step closer to her, she saw what Holtzmann was staring at, the old-fashioned stretcher with the leather straps dangling down from it, the engineer’s hands clenching into tight fists as her breath quickened.

“Holtz?” the physicist said again, taking another step closer and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder; and perhaps, her concern had subconsciously made her drop her guard, or perhaps it still was weakened after she had allowed the ghost girl to connect – whatever the reason was, the moment she touched Holtzmann, their minds connected, as well, and she could see first-hand what was racing through the engineer’s mind.

_They had been fast, so fast, using tasers to stun her and keep her from fighting back, and before she knew what was going on, where her alleged friend had taken her, she was flat on her back on the stretcher and they cut her clothes away, only leaving her the underwear, and then they strap her down, making sure the leather is tight around her wrists and ankles and across her mid-section._

_“Please remain calm, Miss Holtzmann”, one of them, a sort of leader, she guesses, tells her, smiling a smarmy smile at her, “we’re just aiming to make you… better. You’re very suitable for what we have in mind.”_

_They ignore her when she starts to ask questions after this, and they ignore her fear and not long after that, her tears; they run tests on her instead of telling her anything, only tell her to keep still as they do their x-rays and a CAT scan and the men in the white lab coats study the results and mumble to each other and nod._

_And then, they strap the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, saying how it will work better in water, less of a mess, easer to hide things if something should go wrong, and only one of them comments on how young she is, one of the few women of the group, if perhaps, she isn’t too young, if they shouldn’t look for someone else, someone a few years older._

_The others don’t agree, they tell her she’s perfect, with the healing and the claws, and so, they put her into the tank, and she’s scared and crying but now the water is swallowing her tears, hiding them, so nobody has to see._

_Then the needles come, so many of them all lowering at the same time, ready to make her the weapon they want her to be._

_The needles come._

_And the pain._

“…mann! Holtzmann, it’s okay, you’re safe, nobody is going to hurt you, it’s okay…”

She didn’t recognize the voice, not during the first few words, only slowly, she realized where she was and that she wasn’t back in the secret lab at MIT; she could feel Erin’s hand on her shoulder – a brave thing to do, they both knew, if touched and startled at the wrong moment during such brief flashbacks, she more often than not reacted by popping out her claws and just slashing blindly at the ghosts from her past – and tried to focus on that, on Erin’s warm palm and on her soothing, kind voice.

“Holtz”, Erin said again, by now rubbing soothing circles on her back, “are you here with me?”

Her free hand moved to grasp one of Holtzmann’s, a clear sign that at least this time, the claws hadn’t come out; and the feeling of Erin’s fingers curling around hers finally brought her back fully, and she took in a shaky breath as she tore her gaze away from the stretcher, her eyes meeting Erin’s concerned, but loving gaze instead.

“It’s okay”, Erin said again, managing a smile despite how much what she had seen had shaken her up, as well, “you’re not there anymore. Alright? You’re here with me, with us, it’s okay.”

“…yeah”, Holtzmann said, unable to keep a bit of a tremble out of her voice though, Abby and Patty now daring to move closer as well, both of them figuring that the claws wouldn’t make an appearance again after all, “I’m sorry, I… that kinda freaked me out.”

“You have nothing to apologize for”, Erin reassured her, still rubbing her back, the other two nodding their agreement, “are you sure you’re alright? Should we step back out to the hallway?”

“I’m good”, Holtzmann reassured her, keeping her eyes away from the stretcher, still feeling the leather around her wrists and ankles, thick straps which had held her down, “she wants us in this room, so…”

She looked around, wondering to where the ghost girl had vanished; the apparition was nowhere to be seen, and she had a moment to wonder where she had vanished to, and why she had led them here if there was nothing in this room she wanted them to see after all… before the door slammed shut behind them, all four twirling around, the engineer’s claws popping out before she could stop herself.

“Well, well, well”, the head of the hospital commented from where he stood in front of the door, eying the claws with interest as he kept a gun aimed at the women, “isn’t that interesting. You’re trespassing, Ladies, but have no fear, the mayor will never find out about this little mishap.”

He smiled, and then, without further ado, he pulled the trigger, the gunshot deafeningly loud in the small room.


	13. Chapter 13

He had been expecting a variety of reactions when the first bullet found its mark, from screams to crying and cursing of his name; what he hadn’t expected the slightest was that the blonde one went down without a sound and hit the ground – and the brunette one vanished while the only one whose name he knew, Dr Gilbert, rushed at him, instead of freezing in fear or crying out for her girl.

He hurried to aim his gun at her, but before he could pull the trigger, she brought both hands up – and it felt as if an invisible sledgehammer hit him in the chest, driving him backwards until he hit the door, his breath leaving him and stars exploding in front of his eyes as the back of his head slammed into the wood.

Grunting in pain, he blinked his eyes furiously in an attempt to clear them, the pain worse than he had expected; and while he still was busy with that, the tallest of the group got moving, rushing him just like Gilbert had, and grabbed his hand, his eyes going wide when moments later, pain he never had known before took his breath away.

He couldn’t even scream, one final coherent thought flashing through his mind – _oh my God they’re ALL mutants all four of them Jesus fuck –_ then his legs buckled and he slumped down, the last thing he heard being Gilbert letting out a noise of shock as the blue mist started to rise from his body.

* * *

“What the…!” Patty cried out as her touch, her power, forced the ghost out of the director; none of them had had the slightest clue he had been possessed, not even Holtzmann, who usually could smell the ionization of possessed people, had noticed anything, the other three knowing that she would have said something if she’d had.

The blue mist rising from him quickly changed from a vague cloud into a human shape, the size alone showing that it wasn’t a ghost the group had encountered so far; and when the mist formed a head and then a face, Erin let out a gasp, involuntarily taking a step back as she recognized the features at once.

“It’s him”, she brought out in a trembling voice, belatedly realizing that she hadn’t told the others what the man whose ghost they were facing now had done, things had happened so fast after she had been shown, there simply had been no time to tell the others.

“The girl”, she made herself say, while the ghost just smirked and his former host laid on the floor motionless, either out cold or in too much pain to move, “he’s the one who… the doctor…”

From the corner of her eye, she took note of Holtzmann still just lying there, and her shock about this unexpected development was pushed aside by concern – she had seen Holtzmann get shot before, had seen her get hit by more than one bullet even, and it never had taken her so long to recover and get back on her feet.

She didn’t dare look at her though, not wanting to take her eyes off of the ghost; she did dare to _listen_ though, and when she got a glimpse of Holtzmann’s mind, she had to work hard to keep the surprise from showing through her face.

_…close to me. Get him close to me. Are you listening? Get him close to me, Erin. Get him close to me. Get him…_

“I know what you did to the girl!” Erin said out loud, simultaneously taking a step back – she wasn’t quite sure if this would work, but couldn’t think of anything else, “and I’m going to tell everyone, the whole world will you know what you did, your name will be cursed forever!”

Her words had the effect she’d been hoping for – he might have been a doctor before his death, possibly a rational and logical person, but being a ghost had changed him, and his face contorted with anger and hatred, an unarticulated roar coming from him as he lost the bit of self-control he’d had and rushed at the physicist.

Hurriedly, Erin moved back, closer to the engineer; and the second the ghost was within reach, the _snikt_ of Holtzmann popping out her claws echoed through the room, followed by the crackling of the proton streams when she activated them and slashed at the ghost, a pained howl coming from him when the proton blades cut into one of his legs.

While he was still screaming in pain, loud enough to make Erin’s ears ring, Holtzmann shot to her feet, the bullet falling from the folds of her coveralls and clinking to the floor; to her dismay though, he reacted faster than she had thought he would, even after having part of himself cut, a low growl coming from her when he vanished into nothingness just as he slashed at her again.

“Dammit!” the engineer cursed, glaring around, dismayed when the ghost didn’t make another appearance; instead, Abby picked this moment to come back into the room, looking sheepish and a bit worried, even though this was replaced by relief when she saw Holtzmann back on her feet.

“Sorry guys”, she said before any of them could ask where she had been, “I moved a bit too far away, but that guy startled me! Holtzy, you okay?”

“Fine”, Holtzmann told her, eying the puddle of ectoplasm on the floor now, “but our new ghostly friend isn’t. Erin? What were you talking about to make him rush you?”

“I would have told you guys sooner if everything hadn’t happened so fast”, Erin gave back, moving closer to the blonde and smiling when the engineer retracted her claws and put one arm around her – she knew that Holtzmann healed fast and was very hard to kill, but still it was upsetting to see her get hurt, “but I guess now is as good a time as any, so…”

She took in a deep breath, thinking back to what she had seen, her heart clenching up at the memory; and as if those thoughts once again had summoned the girl, her ghost appeared out of thin air, right next to the stretcher, making Holtzmann wince as just looking at it still made her stomach clench, Erin immediately picking up on this and moving closer to her again, placing a calming hand on her back and earning a weak smile from the younger woman.

“That ghost Holtzmann just carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey”, she said, feeling glad when Holtzmann’s smile widened into a smirk in response, “he’s the one the girl showed to me. He was a doctor here, maybe _the_ doctor, you know, Doctor Gottreich, he was treating the girl for something, she didn’t show me what exactly but… Whatever it was, what he did had nothing to do with it, she couldn’t show me why he’d do it but… The was the ice pick I saw in that man’s mind, it was the ghost inside him, not his own thoughts, which is probably also why I had such trouble to get anything else from him.”

She realized that she was rambling and not making any sense, and took in a deep breath, trying to sort her thoughts; at this point, Holtzmann was rubbing her back, her own discomfort about being in a room with a stretcher with straps on it forgotten at how upset Erin was, the physicist giving her a grateful look before she finally spoke on and told them, telling them the secret which had been kept for decades.

“He lobotomized her”, she let the other three know, earning a sharp gasp from Patty while Holtzmann and Abby exchanged startled looks, “that’s what she was trying to say. Nothing about trains and sour balls, it was trans-orbital lobotomy… and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t the only one.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Urch”, the director let out while the three Ghostbusters were still somewhat startled from Erin’s revelation, sitting up on the floor and looking around, dazed, “what…? Where am I? Why am I in the basement?”

He shook his head as if to clear it, then got a closer look at the four women and frowned, coming to his feet with a bit of trouble, either unaware of the gun lying on the floor next to him or having decided to ignore it.

“You guys”, he said, running a nervous hand through his hair, “you’re the Ghostbusters right? What are you doing down here?”

The four women exchanged looks in response, all of them wondering how long exactly the man had been possessed by the ghost of a dead doctor; not quite sure what to tell him, but figuring that he would want answers, Erin let out an “ummm”, only to fall silent again when the ghost girl reappeared right next to her, the director letting out a startled yelp at the sight.

“Jesus!” he then said, taking a step back, “what is going _on_?!”

“You have a haunted hospital, that’s what’s going on”, Abby was the one to answer him, quite bluntly, making him stare at her, “and that little ghost here is your smallest problem, pun not intended.”

“What”, he replied flatly, looking from the ghost girl at Abby, “I don’t… what the Hell? When did you people come here? Ghosts? Who called you? This is all so confusing…”

“We’ll explain”, Abby reassured him, while Erin moved to pick up the gun, the man’s eyes going wide again at the sight of it, making her wonder if he truly hadn’t noticed it before, his bewilderment only growing when he noticed that there was blood on Holtzmann’s clothes, the blonde seeming perfectly fine though, “but we shouldn’t do this down here. Your office, maybe? For privacy?”

He nodded, Abby figuring that he would have agreed to having their talk in the washroom though if she had suggested it, dazed as he appeared to be; and so, she gave him a calming smile and placed one hand on his back, carefully steering him out of the room, the other three following after a moment, Erin glancing back over her shoulder and at the ghost girl still standing next to the stretcher, watching them leave, the physicist unable to shake the feeling that there was something they were missing, something crucial, and that they were making a very big mistake.

* * *

“So you’re telling me that there are at least three ghosts in this hospital”, the director said a while later, in his office now, clutching a cup of coffee as if it kept him from falling over, without drinking from it though, “and one of them has been possessing me? For how long?”

“We can’t answer that”, Erin let him know, feeling bad for him – and about the names she had mentally called him after their first talk with him, when the doctor’s ghost had been possessing him, “but… it might have been for quite a while, when we spoke to you… him… about the haunting for the first time, we were told that our work is not needed. And you… he… wouldn’t let anyone else of the staff call us.”

“Christ”, he mumbled, briefly letting go of the cup to run one hand through his hair, “did anyone get… hurt?”

This made Erin feel even worse for him, but she figured that lying to him wouldn’t help, and, so she nodded, earning a look of dismay from the man, and hurrying to reassure him that it could have been much worse.

“The ghost shouldn’t be let to roam freely though”, she added once she had let him know that a nurse had been thrown down the stairs and had been lightly injured, “and that doctor ghost should be taken care of, as well.”

“Yes, of course”, he agreed at once, Erin and Abby exchanging a brief look, both of them glad that now, they’d finally be officially allowed to do their job, “you have my full support, Christ, to think I’d been possessed all this time… The damage this guy could have done…”

“I think it wasn’t that long”, Patty tried to calm him down, “and you have some very courageous people on your staff who reached out despite the order that they shouldn’t, and from what we’ve been told, they did so fairly quickly after the ghosts started showing up.”

Erin took note of how Patty hadn’t actually revealed who had called them, and momentarily wondered why she would do so, why she’d hold back that bit of information; then, she figured that the historian had her reasons, and just smiled and nodded, making the director look at her again when she spoke up once more.

“We’ll need full access to the hospital”, she let the man know, making him nod, “from the basement to the rooftop. The haunting does seem focused to the basement area, but if these ghosts are capable of moving through the whole building, we need to be, too.”

“Yes, of course”, he nodded at once, much more agreeable to what they needed from him, “you’ll get one of our all access keys, just please don’t lose it, we don’t have many of those going around and they’re expensive to copy.”

They all nodded their agreement to that, and he made a quick call to get one of the keys brought to his office; and once the Ghostbusters had been given said key, they let the man know that they’d have a meeting of their own now to plan the next steps, returning to Erin’s room to do just that and giving the man some time to come to terms with what had happened.

“Okay”, Abby said the moment they were back in said room, peering out into the hallway to make sure no one was around to eavesdrop before she pulled the door close, “is it just me, or did something about the guy still feel a bit off?”

“A bit, yeah”, Erin had to agree, grimacing, not liking this very much, “but then, he has been possessed by a malevolent spirit for God knows how long.”

“Which is exactly why I think something is off”, Abby pointed out, making Patty nod along, the researcher clearly not having been the only one who’d had this impression, “he just took it so… calmly. I mean, yeah, he was a bit upset, but I know what it’s like to be possessed, even for just a few minutes, and trust me, if I learned that I’d been possessed for days or even longer, I certainly wouldn’t be so calm.”

Holtzmann grimaced and nodded her agreement, prompting Abby to look a bit sheepish for a moment as she remembered that she wasn’t the only member of the team who had gotten possessed since the four of them had started working together; Erin reached over to grasp her hand, and made the blonde smile slightly, Erin smiling back at her as she squeezed her hand.

“Well”, the physicist then said, not letting go of Holtzmann’s hand, figuring that her girlfriend could use some physical tenderness after the flashback she’d had in the basement, knowing well how traumatic the whole experience had been for her, “he did give his okay for us to do our job here, so at least there’s that. Maybe he just held back any strong emotions he has about having been possessed until he’s alone, I wouldn’t want to freak out in front of four strangers, either.”

“Could be”, Abby had to admit, “but still, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off about him. I guess for now though, we just should be glad he finally lets us get to work, as Erin said, and do our job.”

“We should head back to that basement”, Holtzmann commented, making the other three nod, “and no, before you ask, I’m not worried about going down there again, now that I know that stretcher is there, it won’t blindside me like it did before.”

Erin squeezed her hand again at that, and earned another smile, a slightly more genuine and braver one this time; and then, the four of them left her room and headed back to the basement, eager to find the doctor’s ghost and make sure he couldn’t harm anyone else ever again.


	15. Chapter 15

Despite her reassurances that it was fine, seeing the stretcher again sent a cold shiver up and down Holtzmann’s spine; she gave her best to not let this show though, glancing around the room instead, not quite surprised to find it empty.

“Guess it would have been too easy to just find this nasty doctor ghost here and bust him”, she commented, making the others nod; frowning, Erin momentarily felt a bit lost, not sure where to go next, realizing with dismay how little they actually knew about this haunting.

“I almost wish that the doctor would attack us again”, she said, prompting Abby to raise an eyebrow while Holtzmann just looked amused and Patty shook her head, “so we’d know where to go.”

“Should we split up?” Holtzmann wanted to know, “I don’t like the idea either, babe, don’t look at me like that, but this basement is _big_ , and if we have to check all of it…”

“It’s even bigger than the Stonebrook theatre”, Abby had to agree, “and we had to split up back there, too. You know I like it as little as you do Erin, but Holtz has a point.”

“I know”, Erin sighed, having to admit that Abby had made a good point, “okay, fine, let’s split up. Teams of two, Holtz and me, Patty and you. Keep the radio switched on the whole time, and the moment one team sees something, they radio the other one, immediately.”

The other three nodded their agreement to that, then split up, in the teams Erin had suggested; and as Holtzmann and she walked through the dark, damp hallways, she was glad that the engineer had added radios to the straps of their proton packs, positioned so at shoulder height that they could be easily reached with one hand even in the midst of combat, the speaker crackling audibly when Erin switched her radio on.

“Abby, Patty”, she said, making sure to speak a bit louder than usual just to be on the safe side, “can you hear me?”

“Perfectly”, Abby’s voice came in response, making Erin smile, “now let’s hope these radios won’t lose the signal once we go deeper into the basement.”

“I’m offended, Abs”, Holtzmann commented on that, “you know I juiced these babies up, they won’t lose the signal. You could go down into a mineshaft with those and talk to the person who stayed on the surface.”

“Okay, okay, forgive me”, Abby gave back, making Erin giggle while Holtzmann told her it was all fine; then, they fell silent, not wanting to alert the ghosts to their presence any more than necessary, the only noises being their footsteps and the random sounds of the hospital’s basement all around them.

“You know, I wonder about something”, Erin whispered after they just had walked side by side in silence for a while, making Holtzmann look at her questioningly, “based on what we’ve been told, there’s three ghosts in this hospital, perhaps even more. We know for sure about the doctor, the ghost girl, and the violent one who pushed the nurses. But why haven’t we seen the pushy one so far?”

“Good question”, Holtzmann gave back, frowning to herself as she pondered this, “wait, we don’t know that the one who attacked you while you got the CAT scan wasn’t the pushy one, do we?”

“We don’t, not for sure”, Erin had to admit, “but I got a feeling it wasn’t. It’s just a hunch, nothing I can prove, but…”

“Sweetheart”, the engineer replied, with a small smile which made Erin smile back almost automatically, “you’re a skilled mindreader and telepath. If you say it’s a hunch, I believe you. You think it was Dr Frankenstein who attacked you, don’t you.”

“I thought so, yes”, Erin nodded, “but then I realized, if he’s been possessing the director the whole time, how could he attack me? The director wasn’t there, we would have noticed him, but if the ghost left him to attack me, wouldn’t the director have noticed that something is wrong? That he’s missing hours, days, perhaps weeks?”

As she spoke, her hunch grew, the feeling that she was missing something crucial, that all of them were overlooking something all too important; before she could come to any sort of conclusion though, the radio crackled to life, and what Holtzmann and she heard made their blood run cold.

“Patty and I can see something, up ahead”, Abby was telling the couple, “it looks like… hey! Hey, no! Get away from—”

Her voice drowned in the sounds of proton guns being fired, and then both Patty and her screamed; Erin and Holtzmann exchanged one look, then both took off running, Holtzmann quickly taking the lead, her above average strength and stamina making it easy for her to run with the heavy pack on her back, Erin not falling far behind though, by now in quite the good shape, as well, all four of them having learned quickly that busting ghosts was better than any fitness studio workout.

They kept running through the basement at high speed, soon hearing Patty yell from somewhere ahead of them and not just through the radio; and then, after what seemed like an endless timespan, even though Erin knew only minutes had passed, they rounded a corner and found themselves faced with an Abby who was teleporting from spot to spot around the historian, landing kicks and punches, and vanishing into thin air each time before Patty had the chance to grab her.

“The ghost got her!” Patty managed to cry out between the attacks, her words prompting the ghost to realize that it wasn’t alone with the historian anymore; and as Erin and Holtzmann came to a screeching halt, it snarled at them, the look on Abby’s face so unlike the researcher that it made them both take a step back.

“I was hoping I’d have a few more minutes to take out this one first”, the ghost said with Abby’s voice, her tone cold and full of hatred and as unlike her as the snarl on her face, “you’re fast, I have to give you that.”

Holtzmann grit her teeth in response, the skin between her knuckles itching, but she forced herself to keep the blades inside, telling herself that this was still Abby and that she couldn’t hurt the first real friend she’d ever had; fighting the urge to pop the claws out though and just let her anger take over got considerably harder though when the ghost made use of Abby’s teleport to move, appearing right in front of her and punching her hard in the jaw before she teleported again and kicked the engineer in the back.

As Holtzmann stumbled, the ghost used Abby’s power again, to go after Erin this time, punching her as hard as she had punched the blonde, hard enough to throw her off her feet; Holtzmann let out a low growl at the sight of Erin hitting the floor, and when the iron scent of fresh blood hit her nostrils, her anger only grew.

“Interesting”, the ghost within Abby commented at this reaction, teleporting out of reach yet again before Holtzmann could do more than take a step closer to her; she ended up behind the engineer and kicked her again, “you get more pissed off when I hit her than when I hit you.”

“Don’t you dare touch her”, Holtzmann pressed out between grit teeth, but the ghost only laughed – before Abby teleported again, ending up right next to Erin, moving with startling speed as she grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her to her feet, unimpressed by the cry of pain the physicist let out.

With another growl, Holtzmann took a step closer to the two, eager to get Erin away before she could get hurt even worse – she looked dazed and judging from the quite visible crook in her nose and the blood gushing from her nostrils, the bone had been broken, and that was bad enough, but Holtzmann wasn’t willing to let her get injured more than that – but before she could do more than that, the ghost brought up Abby’s free hand, and out of nowhere, an ice pick appeared in her grip, made of shimmering, ghostly blue stuff, and Holtzmann froze at once.

“Smart”, Abby commented, smiling cruelly as the ghost moved the tip of the ice pick to Erin’s throat, the physicist unable to hold back a gasp when the ice cold tip touched the sensitive skin there, not with enough pressure to break the skin yet, but she could tell that not much more was needed to make more blood flow, “now, Dr Gilbert and I will find a quiet, calm place, where I can take care of her. Then I’ll come back for the two of you. Don’t go anywhere.”

She let out a malicious laugh, then her grip on Erin tightened, and they vanished into thin air, Holtzmann letting out a frustrated roar and slamming her fist against the wall, ignoring the brief flash of pain, her shoulders slumping as she realized that, even if the ghost wasn’t planning to kill Erin right away, it still was highly unlikely that they would find her in time, with as big as the basement was.

“We have to find her”, she still said, struggling once more to keep her anger under control, telling herself that she could do this, that she could track Erin by her scent, if there was one scent she knew better than any other on this world, it was her girlfriend’s, “and stop him, before he… You know what he’ll do to her…”

Patty just nodded, swallowing heavily; neither of them had to say it out loud, and they got moving without another word necessary, Holtzmann sniffing the air in an attempt to pick up Erin’s scent, not wanting to image the consequences if they wouldn’t be able to find her in time.


	16. Chapter 16

“There you are again”, Abby’s voice came as Erin opened her eyes and let out a pained groan, “I’d already started to worry I hit you too hard.”

Erin groaned again, feeling like throwing up, wondering if she had a concussion; she remembered the ghost using Abby and her power to teleport them away, she had been planning to get away from her possessed friend once that teleportation would be over, but the moment they had appeared in one of the other basement rooms, Abby had slammed her head against the wall, and then there was nothing, until she had come back around just moments ago.

And now, she had to realize with her blood running cold, it would be considerably harder to get away – because she was on a stretcher like the one which had given Holtzmann her flashback, and she was strapped down, the thick leather tight around her wrists and ankles.

“I actually worried I damaged your brilliant brain”, the ghost said, smiling cruelly, a smile which looked so _wrong_ on Abby’s face that it made Erin’s skin crawl, “but then I realized, even if I did, it won’t matter, right? Not in the long run.”

“This won’t solve your troubles, and you know it”, Erin replied, giving her best to sound even and calm, not wanting the ghost to notice what she was doing, “even if you… do this to me, the others will hunt you down and bust you. Holtzmann will chase you to the end of the world if you do this, if she even has to, can you leave this hospital?”

“Don’t try to stall, Dr Gilbert”, the ghost replied, shaking Abby’s head, and Erin wondered if Abby was aware of what was going on, a thought she rigorously pushed aside a moment later, telling herself she had other things to worry about now, “and don’t try to get answers from me. But, on the other hand, I suppose I should let you enjoy your inquisitive mind while you still have it. You know, I always wondered what the mind of a lobotomized person would be like, maybe I’ll possess you after I’m done and find out.”

The ice pick appeared in Abby’s hand again, and even though it looked ghostly and transparent, Erin knew that it would hurt her, would do irreparable damage to her brain; her palms got sweaty at the thought, but she told herself that she had to keep her calm, that she’d only get one chance to pull off the vague plan which had formed in her mind, and that she couldn’t allow herself to freak out now.

_You can freak out later, once you’re safe,_ she told herself, _for now, keep your calm, you can do this, you know you can do this…_

Still smiling that awful smile, the ghost bent over her, Abby’s hand bringing up the ice pick, her other hand grasping Erin’s hair again to keep her head still; and just then, Erin’s eyes narrowed as she focused, pouring as much power as she dared into her telekinetic skill, feeling proud despite the dire situation when the straps around her wrists practically flew open, surprising the ghost enough to make him recoil.

Quickly, Erin made use of the bit of room this gave her, and the few seconds it had gained her; she yanked her hands out of the straps and brought them up, giving a single sharp push with her power this time – she wanted to get out of this in one piece and with her brain intact, but not hurt Abby if she could avoid it – and even though she didn’t want Abby to get hurt, she felt darkly satisfied when the researcher hit the wall and groaned, clearly in pain and dazed.

“Sorry, Abby”, Erin mumbled, not quite sure if her friend could hear her – and knowing she didn’t want her to be aware enough to hear her, with the things the doctor’s ghost had been planning for her, “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

It wasn’t easy to hold a person in place with her telekinetic power, but she had done it before, and knew she could do it; and the last time she had done it, it had been two men she’d held in place, and if she’d accomplished that, she certainly could keep Abby against the wall, at least until Holtzmann and Patty would arrive.

“Holtzmann!” she called out as loud as she could, not having an idea how far the ghost had teleported them from the other two and if the engineer could even hear her; she knew though that Holtzmann’s ears were almost as good as her nose, and so she called out again, telling herself that sooner or later, Holtzmann would hear her.

She could feel the ghost within Abby struggle against her hold, and sweat formed on her brow as she poured more power into the hold, knowing that she couldn’t overdo it, all too aware of the consequences, but the ghost breaking out of her hold was a thought she fancied even less, and so, she took the risk, trying to ignore the first warning flashed of pain in her brain and the fact that after half a minute, sweat was not just trickling down her face, but pouring down her cheeks in small rivulets.

“Holtzmann”, she tried again, and her concentration only slipped for a second, but it was enough, the ghost cackling evilly with Abby’s voice as he made the researcher’s body rush from the wall and at Erin, the ghostly ice pick reappearing back in her hand, Erin flinching back as the ghost aimed the weapon at her, the sharp tip grazing her forearm as the ghost slashed at her.

Immediately, her arm went numb, from the elbow all the way to her fingertips; she didn’t feel the blood trickling from the wound, and thankfully, it didn’t hurt, either, but she figured that it would sooner or later, telling herself she had to get this under control again before she could get hurt worse.

Erin couldn’t feel the blood trickle down her arm, but she felt it run from her nose when she used her power again, pushed Abby back against wall; still she kept the power flowing, despite the damage that might do, gritting her teeth when the ghost started struggling again.

And just when she thought that she simply couldn’t do it anymore, that she had to stop or would end up fainting, the door leading to the small room flew open and Holtzmann came rushing in, teeth bared in a snarl and claws out, the proton streams she already had activated crackling and flashing on the blades.

Patty was right behind her, and just needed one look to figure out what was going on; she yanked off one of her gloves, and the second her fingers closed around Abby’s forearm, Erin stopped using her power, staggering as the world blurred in front of her eyes.

“No”, she still brought out when Holtzmann turned towards her, “the ghost…”

Even though she didn’t like it much, Holtzmann had to admit that Erin was right and that they had to take care of the ghost first; and so, she turned to face Abby again, just in time as Patty’s power was kicking in and forced the ghost out of the researcher, the engineer snarling again as she moved to attack, eager to take the ghost out as fast as possible, before he could recover and try to possess someone else.

He had a second to realize that she was coming at him, then she slashed at him, the claws cutting through his arm when he brought it up in an attempt to protect himself; he let out a roar of pain as his forearm and hand disintegrated, ectoplasm splattering to the floor, but before Holtzmann could land another hit, the ghost turned and rushed away from her, vanishing through the wall, the engineer letting out a growl of frustration, her blood now up, after the damage she had done.   

On any other day, she would have tried to chase after the ghost, despite the fact that the ghost could go through walls and she couldn’t; now though, part of her, one which was louder than her anger and frustration, remembered that Erin had staggered and nearly fallen and had been bleeding when Patty and she had burst into the room, and her concern for the physicist weighed heavier than her anger.

And so, she turned to her girlfriend, just in time to see her legs buckle; she rushed forward and grabbed her, catching her before she could hit the ground, and Erin held on to her tight as she struggled to not faint, telling herself that she had to stay awake and that she could get some rest once the ghost had been taken care of for good.


	17. Chapter 17

“I’ll buy you a ton of ice cream once we’re done here”, Abby said once she had recovered enough from the possession to stand on her own two feet again and talk without feeling like she’d throw up; Erin, still resting in Holtzmann’s arms, managed a weak smile, then dared to sit up, her head aching and her stomach still a bit queasy, but her nose had stopped bleeding, and she could feel her arm again, figuring that this would have to do for now.

“We have to get that ghost”, she said as she came to her feet, with some help from Holtzmann, the engineer giving her a worried look, but not trying to stop her, knowing her too well at this point to even try, “before he can get away. Or possess someone else.”

She flexed her fingers, just to make sure they still worked; this sent a flash of pain through her arm, but it was bearable, and so, she nodded when Holtzmann asked her if she truly was alright.

“Fine”, she mumbled, using the tissue Patty was offering to wipe drying blood from her upper lip and chin, “just… holding that ghost in place when he was possessing Abby really took a toll on me. No more power use for today.”

“Better not”, Holtzmann agreed solemnly – she didn’t know much about telekinetic powers and telepathy, her own powers manifesting more on the physical side of the spectrum, but she did know that Erin got hellish migraines whenever she used her powers too much, and a nosebleed was always a bad sign, “just to be on the safe side.”

If there hadn’t been pain pulsing through her head in worrisome sync with her heartbeat, Erin would have nodded; thanks to her headache, she just gave the blonde another weak smile, then made a vague gesture at the wall through which the ghost had vanished.

“Let’s go”, she said, managing to sound stronger than she was feeling; she might have fooled someone who didn’t know her well, not her friends and girlfriend though, Abby and Patty looking at her in concern while Holtzmann kept one arm around her waist, steadying and supporting her, making sure she wouldn’t end up going down again.

“Too bad ghosts don’t bleed ectoplasm even after they had a part cut off”, Abby commented, eying the puddle of ectoplasm on the floor, the sad remains of the arm Holtzmann had sliced off the ghost, “or we could track him easier. I want to give him a good punch for possessing me and almost…”

She couldn’t even say it, swallowing heavily as she gave Erin an apologetic look; Erin reassured her it wasn’t her fault, even though she knew that a few words of forgiveness wouldn’t take Abby’s guilt away, once more making her wonder how much the researcher actually had witnessed when the ghost had possessed her.

“I’m okay”, Erin said instead of asking about this, earning weak smile from her friend, “and it wasn’t your fault.”

Abby just shrugged, then turned towards the door, apparently dropping the topic for now; she left the small room to where the ghost had taken Erin using her body, the other three following her, only for Patty to nearly bump into her as she stopped unexpectedly a second after having stepped through the door.

“What…” Patty started to say, then saw the reason why Abby had stopped and fell silent; the little ghost girl looked at Abby, then at her, but apparently wasn’t satisfied with either of them, since she frowned, the frown vanishing though when Erin stepped out into the hallway and the girl could see her.

Instead, for the first time since she had shown herself to Erin, the girl’s face showed an expression different to the slack emptiness, the smallest of smiles curling her lips, and it widened even further when Holtzmann stepped out next, the girl’s eyes flickering to the engineer’s hands.

“Looks like you made a new friend”, Erin told the blonde, making her smile a bit, as well; she smiled back at her, then focused on the girl again, and without thinking, opened her mind, the girl responding by sending her a flood of images which confirmed what Erin had suspected the moment she had seen the now more expressive features and how the girl had reacted to Holtzmann.

A series of images flooded her mind, of the smiling doctor and of what he had done to the poor girl, of how she had died after the procedure and of how she had been stuck at this hospital; how she had wandered the hallways, lonely and lost and not quite sure why she still was there… and how the doctor had joined her, months or perhaps even years later, as a malevolent spirit out to hurt people in death as he had hurt them in life.

This was followed by the third ghost showing up, even though Erin didn’t get a clear message about who exactly this ghost was; the only information she managed to collect before the image moved on was that he was old and male, but the girl either didn’t know who he was, or didn’t want to _let_ her know, and Erin found herself wondering why the girl would want to keep a secret from her, after how hard the Ghostbusters had been trying to help her.

Then, the next image flashed through her mind, and she was just a tiny bit surprised to see that it was Holtzmann wounding the doctor – she had suspected that the girl and the doctor were somehow connected, and this pretty much confirmed it.

The sight of the retreating doctor’s ghost was the last thing the girl sent her, giving her another small smile afterwards; Erin smiled back at her, then turned to look at her friends and girlfriend, quickly explaining what she had seen.

“The doctor and the girl are connected”, she finished, “and I think that she’s stuck here for as long as that doctor is around. Once we took care of him, she should be able to move on, as well. I’m just not sure how the third ghost plays into all of this…”

“Guess we’ll find out once we took care of doc”, Holtzmann said with a little shrug, clearly not all too worried about this third ghost – perhaps, Erin thought to herself, because said third ghost hadn’t shown itself to them yet, but she did remember that it had attacked two nurses that they knew of and might have been responsible for other attacks, as well, the Ghostbusters not having an idea yet which ghost had been behind the incident during the CAT scan, and certainly, Holtzmann remembered this, too.

She did agree though that the doctor was their first priority, with his connection to the girl and after what he had almost done to her while he had been possessing Abby; and so, she nodded her agreement, only to pause when she realized that she had no idea where to go now, what with the doctor having run off through the wall and out of sight after Holtzmann had cut off his arm.

“Child”, she thus said, regretting that said child so far wasn’t able to let them know her name, glad though when in response, she got another small smile, figuring that now, the girl understood at least enough to realize that Erin was talking to her, giving her reason to hope that the ghost girl might be able to help them, at least a bit, “can you help us? We need to find the doctor, the one who did this to you, can you show us where he went?”

In response, the girl stepped closer to her, and reached out; her fingers went numb again, like when the doctor had hurt her there with his ghostly ice pick, but it didn’t hurt, and neither did the connection which formed between them again, yet another image filling her mind, a single on this time, surprisingly crisp and clear.

Her eyes went wide, and her gasp prompted Holtzmann to take a step forward, the engineer’s brow furrowing as she had to assume that the ghost was now hurting Erin, too; before the claws could make an appearance though, and the engineer might end up attacking the girl, Erin quickly reached out to touch her arm with her free hand, signalling that she was okay and that there was no need to defend her.

The girl pulled her hand back, ending the connection; Erin had seen enough though, her face pale as she swallowed heavily, all the pieces clicking into place, all of it suddenly making terrible sense.

“I know where to find him”, she said out loud, the slight tremble in her voice prompting Holtzmann to take another step closer and to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, the girl watching this interaction in silence, her face now empty and expressionless again, as if showing Erin what the Ghostbusters needed to know to take care of this once and for all had drained the little bit of lucidity she had regained from Holtzmann hurting the doctor.

“We’ll take care of this”, Erin promised the girl after she had told the others what she had been shown, and had earned reactions pretty similar to her own, wide eyes and gasps, “I promise, we’ll make sure he’ll be trapped or destroyed, and then, you can move on.”

The girl didn’t react anymore, but Erin still hoped that she had understood, at least enough to know that the Ghostbusters now knew and would help her; then, she said “let’s go” and they all got moving, Erin leading the way, her jaw set and determination in her eyes, Holtzmann by her side and Abby and Patty behind her, the three other members of the team as determined as Erin was to take care of this, eager to give the girl the chance to rest and to make sure that the hospital’s haunting would finally come to an end.


	18. Chapter 18

The Ghostbusters marched straight back to the ground floor, and from the stairway leading back up there, to the elevators; during the ride up to the top floor, Erin fed her anger, enraged at having been played this way, and from how tense Holtzmann was next to her, she could tell that the engineer felt similar, the younger woman having holstered her proton gun to rub the skin between the her knuckles, a clear sign that she was having some strong emotion.

“No slashing up”, Erin thus said, just to be on the safe side, earning a miffed look from her girlfriend, “at least not right away. Patty goes in first.”

Holtzmann let out a vaguely agreeing grunt, and Erin figured that this was good enough; still the engineer checked her gloves, making sure they sat correctly so she could reach the little buttons built into them quickly, and would be able to activate the proton streams for her claws within the blink of an eye, should the need for it arise.

Behind her, Patty pulled off her gloves, both of them this time, just to be on the safe side; and the moment the elevator had stopped moving and the doors had slid open, Erin and Holtzmann moved aside and let Patty take the lead.

“Excuse me!” one of the office clerks called out, looking alarmed, possibly at the varying degrees of anger he could see on the faces of the four women, “you can’t just…!”

They all ignored him, Patty entering the director’s office first; the man looked up from his work with a raised eyebrow, but before he could do more than that, Patty had marched up to him and grabbed his hand, her eyes flashing up white as her power flared up.

The man let out a strange monosyllabic “urp!” sound which would have been amusing, had the circumstances been different; his eyes widened, and he tried to pull his hand back, but Patty’s fingers tightened around his, and Holtzmann let her claws slide out, not caring anymore if the people at the office outside could see, Abby moving to shield her from view though while she pulled her proton gun from the holster, Erin doing the same, an audible hum filling the office as they powered up their weapons.

For a moment, she regretted that none of them had thought of closing the door when they had entered the director’s office, all too aware of how dangerous this might be for the office clerks; and then, the ghost was forced out of the director’s body, and she had to focus on taking care of that, barely registering the cries of surprise from the people in the adjoining office.

The moment the ghost had completely left the man’s body, Abby and Erin fired, the proton streams wrapping around the shrieking ghost; simultaneously, Patty let go of the director, and he slumped back in his seat, but they all could see the anger in his eyes, and Erin found herself wondering how they could have let this happen, how they could have let this man play them like that.

Erin saw his hand move to the drawer of his desk, and suddenly knew what he was about to grab without having to read his mind; she shouted a warning, and while was still doing so, Holtzmann already had gotten moving, clearly having seen the same thing.

She pushed Patty aside and out of harm’s way, then leapt over the desk, in one smooth movement; Erin had a moment to see that the claws were gone again, and was relieved, figuring that the last thing they needed now was Holtzmann stabbing the guy, no matter what he had done.

Instead of using her claws on him, Holtzmann grabbed his wrist a second before he could pull the gun from the drawer; and when she twisted said wrist sharply, Erin actually heard the bone snap, and she felt her stomach turn, but didn’t let this distract her from keeping the ghost caught up in the stream, the howls of the ghost now mixing with the pained shrieks of the director.

“We need help with this one, guys!” Abby called out, having realized that two streams wouldn’t be enough to force the ghost into one of their traps; in response, Patty and Holtzmann both yanked their own proton guns from their pack, Holtzmann making sure to keep an eye on the by now whimpering director as she pushed down the trigger button, even though he didn’t seem much of a danger anymore, just clutching his broken wrist and whimpering in pain.

The ghost’s struggles increased as two more streams wrapped around him, for a few moments; then, he started to grow noticeably weaker, Erin calling out “the trap!” the second she noticed this, prompting Holtzmann to yank said trap from her pack and slide it beneath the ghost writhing in the streams, his attempts to escape growing weaker as said streams drained his power.

“Trap open in 3… 2… 1…”, the engineer counted down, then slammed her foot down on the pedal; the trap snapped open, and the ghost howled again, his struggles lessening further though as the trap began to pull him in.

From the corner of her eye, Erin noticed that a bunch of people had gathered in the doorway and was watching them, wide-eyed and amazed, but didn’t allow herself to get distracted – not until the ghost had been forced into the trap, and Holtzmann stepped onto the pedal again, the trap snapping shut with an audible noise, the room oddly quiet when a second later, the four women deactivated the proton streams, the only noise now being the soft whimpers of the director.

“There we go”, Erin said, allowing herself to relax now that the malevolent doctor’s ghost had been taken care of – before she remembered that he hadn’t been the only one with bad intentions in this hospital, and turned to look at the director, her gaze hard, his whimpers not earning him any sympathy from any of the four women.

“As for you”, she said, not bothering to keep her voice low, not caring if the office clerks still watching from the doorway heard or not, “you better have a _very_ good explanation for why you willingly let a malevolent ghost possess you for God knows how long.”

* * *

As it turned out, if he did have a good explanation for his doings, he wouldn’t tell the Ghostbusters; he just sat there, glaring at them as he cradled his broken wrist, and refused to give them any reasons for what he had done.

“There’s nothing you can do, you know”, he said instead of explaining why he had done all of this, “there’s no law against willingly being possessed by a ghost. And you can’t prove I used my gun on any of you, because the one I did shoot is a mutant freak who healed quickly. I’ll let the world know about this, you know, I’ll expose all four of you as mutants, and then they won’t be so enamoured with the Ghostbusters any longer, I imagine.”

“There might be no law against what you did”, Erin had to admit, earning a smug grin from him, “but you seem to forget we are government-funded. And the government is going to be very interested in you.”

He paled at that, and while Erin felt bad about handing him over to government agents like that, especially with the knowledge of what people who had been part of the government had done to Holtzmann; she also knew though that just letting him walk free wasn’t an option, and so, without looking away from him, she asked Abby to make the call, the researcher nodding before she left the room.

“You can’t do this”, he protested, his gaze moving to the drawer again, “you have no jurisdiction to do this!”

“The people Abby is calling do”, Holtzmann let him know, giving him a warning look when his eyes moved to the drawer again, “and don’t even think about it. You’ve been aware when that ghost was possessing you, so you know what I can do. What we all can do.”

“Freaks”, he pressed out between grit teeth, didn’t try to make another move for the gun though; still Holtzmann kept her eye on him to make sure he wouldn’t get any weird ideas, and did so until the government agents arrived and took the director away.


	19. Chapter 19

“Good work, Ladies”, one of the agents said while two of his colleagues dragged the director off, unimpressed by his protests, “the ghost is in there?”

“Yes”, Erin confirmed, with a brief glance at the trap, “we’re not really sure why he’d let that ghost possess him, but… Well, after Rowan wanting to destroy the world, voluntary possession shouldn’t seem so weird anymore, right?”

“Nothing should seem weird when ghosts are involved, I imagine”, the agent replied, making her smile a bit, “and I can tell you why he did it even before we’ll finish questioning. Knowledge and power, that’ll be the gist of it. He might give a more elaborate reason, but it’ll boil down to _Jesus Christ!”_

The reason for his cry was quickly made clear – the ghost girl materialized into existence right next to Erin, and while the agent took a somewhat comical hop backwards, none of the Ghostbusters was very fazed, even though they all tensed up when a second ghost appeared, a few feet away though, all four women realizing that this had to be the mysterious third ghost, the one they hadn’t encountered and the one who had attacked the nurses.

Then, at the second glance, they all took note of how changed the little girl looked, the slack expression gone from her face; instead, she was smiling now, and raised her hands to the Ghostbusters, her voice surprisingly clear and pleasant when she spoke up.

“Thank you”, she said, and suddenly, Erin had to swallow heavily, feeling close to tears, something Holtzmann picked up on at once as she stepped closer to her and put one hand on her back, “for helping me, even though you had nothing to gain from it. With _him_ gone, I can go, too, and so can my friend.”

She gestured at the other ghost, who, to the bafflement and slight amusement of the four women, shuffled his feet and looked nervous; the girl gave him a calming smile, then focused on the Ghostbusters again, giving an explanation without any of them having to ask.

“He tried to help, the only way he could”, she let them know, making Erin nod as it all made sense now, especially the fact that the attacks had stopped once it had become clear that they were after the malevolent doctor ghost, “by getting attention to what was going on with the doctor, by getting someone here who could help. I would have stopped him from attacking the nurses if I’d been able to, but, well, I was… not quite able to communicate. Not until you came along, Dr Gilbert, so thank you.”

“You have nothing to thank us for”, Erin reassured her, smiling, still feeling close to tears, fully realizing now that it had been her friends and herself who had made sure that this little girl would finally be able to find peace, “it’s our job. And I’m happy we could help.”

“I’m not sure that letting a possibly malevolent ghost into your mind like you let me is part of your job”, the girl pointed out, surprising Erin with her eloquence, now that the effect of the lobotomy which had killed her had vanished along with the ghost of the man who had done it to her, “but you did just that, and figured out what was happening here. So please accept our thanks, mine and his.”

“We do”, Erin reassured her, the other three women nodding their agreement, the agent just watching in amazed silence; the girl smiled again, then reached out for the other ghost, and he responded by stepping closer to her and taking her hand, the girl looking at the Ghostbusters again afterwards, just having time to give them a brief, but kind smile – before both she and the other ghost started to become transparent, then vanished, both having found peace now that the doctor was gone.

“Alright”, Erin said after a few deep breaths, and once she could be sure she wouldn’t burst into tears the moment she’d open her mouth, “I guess our work here is done. Let’s go home.”

The others nodded at once, and Holtzmann put one arm around Erin’s waist; smiling, Erin returned the gesture, then kissed her gently, but quickly before the four of them left the office together, none of them looking back as they walked out of the hospital a short while later, knowing that they had done a good thing and that Gottreich Memorial was a perfectly safe and ghost-free hospital once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand it's done :) Thank you all for reading, kudos and commenting - I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it :D


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